Topics Covered During Podcast

Converting customers is on the initial visit is increasingly difficult. Marketers rely on all types of technology to encourage visitors to return. How has this evolve and where do you think it is going?

Only 2% of traffic converts in an initial visit. To convert the other 98% you have three options: retargeting ads, remarketing emails, and web push notifications.

Website visitors who are remarketed are 70% more likely to convert.

Retargeted ads can surprise customers and create a creepy experience. This, combined with ad blockers, make retargeting less effective when it comes to driving reengagement.

Web browser companies are further complicating the matter. Earlier this year, Google added a built-in ad blocker to the latest update of Chrome, automatically blocking ads on pages that are particularly distracting.

Last month, Apple added Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP 2) to the newest version of Safari (the majority of US traffic is on Safari). This means that when a visitor abandons their cart, you can t rely on retargeted ads on other websites to get them back.

Questions During Podcast

How long have you been marketing mobile products?

What does OneSignal do?

How has the push notification evolved?

What is the psychology of the push notification?

Do you have statistics on how well mobile reengagement works?

How often do you have to make changes to your solution as new versions of operating systems and browsers are released?

How does an Alexa push notification work?

What are your thoughts on ad blockers?

If you had to pick one retargeting method, what would you pick and why?

What do you think is the biggest challenge is for traffic generation marketers?

Out of your 500,000 developers, how many segments do you use to target them?

What is the best buyer persona you have ever seen?

Do you look at social media profiles to target your personas?

Do you have a story of how you obtained a branded case study that you previously thought was impossible?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

Contact Lydia

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/evolution-push-notifications-lydia-fayal/feed/0Lydia Fayal is an expert on streamlining on-line business strategies. She has a unique background for marketing. She first attended Penn Law and Wharton before starting her own business. She then founded a venture-backed edtech startup and became an expert marketer at both B2C and B2B startups. She s currently at OneSignal, a SaaS company that [...]NoNo0:00Scott Kingbranding, content marketing, growth marketing, retargetingHow I Tested 75,000 Pieces of Content – Brendan Kanehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-i-tested-75000-pieces-of-content-brendan-kane/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-i-tested-75000-pieces-of-content-brendan-kane/#respondThu, 20 Dec 2018 14:00:25 +0000https://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4755Growth strategist Brendan Kane has constructed applications, platforms and campaigns for celebrity clients for Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Katie Couric, Michael Strahan, and supermodel Adriana Lima. Brendan authored One Million Followers: How I Built a Massive Social Following in 30 Days and provides some of the stories resident in his book. Listen in to find out how he tested 75,000 pieces of content to save his client over $31,000,000 in user acquisition costs.

Questions During Podcast

Your book title says it all One Million Followers: How I Built a Massive Social Following in 30 Days. What s the trick?

Are there common variables you look at when testing content for B2C and B2B?

What should B2B marketers do to optimize content?

What did you learn from working with Taylor Swift s that can apply to B2B?

Is there a campaign that you knew would be great but ended up not working well?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week, what would you do with your time?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-i-tested-75000-pieces-of-content-brendan-kane/feed/0Growth strategist Brendan Kane has constructed applications, platforms and campaigns for celebrity clients for Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Katie Couric, Michael Strahan, and supermodel Adriana Lima. Brendan authored One Million Followers: How I Built a Massive Social Following in 30 Days and provides some of the stories resident in his book. Listen in to find out how [...]NoNo0:00Scott Kingcontent marketing, growth hacking, growth marketing, psychologyOne Team – Sangram Vajrehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/one-team-sangram-vajre/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/one-team-sangram-vajre/#respondThu, 13 Dec 2018 14:00:16 +0000https://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4734Sangram Vajre (@sangramvajre) is the Co-Founder & CMO of Terminus, an account based marketing platform. He is also the author Account-Based Marketing For Dummies and is the mastermind behind #FlipMyFunnel. In this episode, Sangram talks about how sales and marketing can produce more results by measuring both teams by one scorecard and act as One Team.

Questions During Podcast

What do you consider the biggest challenge for CMOs and marketers today?

How do we overcome these challenges?

How do you see digital marketing or digital experiences evolving?

What data points or KPIs do you monitor in order to optimize?

What was one of your most successful campaigns? What made it effective and how did you measure that?

Describe a time when a project you were overseeing did not go well?

What did you learn from that and how do you avoid that from happening again?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

Closing thoughts?

Contact Sangram

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/one-team-sangram-vajre/feed/0Sangram Vajre (@sangramvajre) is the Co-Founder & CMO of Terminus, an account based marketing platform. He is also the author Account-Based Marketing For Dummies and is the mastermind behind #FlipMyFunnel. In this episode, Sangram talks about how sales and marketing can produce more results by measuring both teams by one scorecard and act as One Team. [...]NoNo25:08Scott Kingabm, account-based marketing, hubspot, terminusHow to Produce Better Webinars – Todd Earwoodhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-produce-better-webinars-todd-earwood/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-produce-better-webinars-todd-earwood/#respondThu, 06 Dec 2018 14:00:51 +0000https://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4708In this episode of the podcast, I talk with, Todd Earwood. Todd is the founder and CEO over at Money Path where he and his team build growth campaigns using several tactics, but most importantly webinars. He does it so well the folks over at Hubspot and GoToWebinar encouraged him to help others and share his formula. Todd talks to me about his webinar secrets and offers some advanced tips on how to leverage your webinars.

Questions During Podcast

How many webinars do you think that you’ve done over the years?

Do you think webinars are more centric to a technical sale or are you guiding people to use webinars in other industries?

Your email research found webinars are the second most prominent follow-on offer? Why do you think that is?

How do you see webinars evolving? Do you think, they’re going to be more prominent, less prominent?

How would you guide a senior marketer with their next webinar? How can we produce better webinars?

What’s one of your, most successful webinars that you can recall?

What made it so effective?

How did you measure the success of your customer’s niche webinar?

What you do or read or listen to or watch to stay on top of your game?

What people ask your advice on other than marketing and sales?

If you didn’t have any responsibilities at home or work, what would you do with your time next week?

Contact Todd Earwood

Transcription

Scott: Well, hey everyone. This is Scott and thanks for downloading the latest episode of the Scott King Show where I talk with sales and marketing leaders from all over the world on how they are building their brands and growing their businesses. Today’s guest is Todd Earwood. Todd is the founder and CEO over at Money Path where he and his team build growth campaigns using several tactics, but most importantly webinars. He does it so well the folks over at Hubspot and GoToWebinar encouraged him to help others and share his formula and he’s going to give us some tips on whatever his webinar formula is and I’m very interested because I myself have probably done over 200 webinars in the past and I guarantee you I’m going to learn something from Todd. So, Todd, welcome to the show,

Todd: Scott, man great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Scott: It’s my pleasure. And like I said, you know, we were talking earlier about, about webinars and they’re a pretty easy vehicle. Most people that listen to the show have either produced a webinar or have attended one either live or recording the webinar. I’ve got a friend that actually has done a 24-hour webinar. I’m really curious about what you’re going to teach us about what you’ve learned, and what tips you can provide us to make a more engaging and entertaining a webinar.

How many webinars do you think that you’ve done over the years?

Todd: Oh Man, I mean the hundreds. I don’t, I’ve way past losing count, right? It’s something that I built as a good lead driver or lead accelerator for my software companies in the past. After I was done building software, I went towards the consulting route where we’re helping companies build, as you read it earlier, the marketing and sales campaigns. I found that the number one thing I could do was take- take a deep dive into what are the direct response marketers doing. How do you take out the sleaze of some of the methods they use and use it for us on the corporate business side. Then, marry this with the whole intent of driving segmented qualified sales leads.

Scott: Yeah. It’s interesting you talked about software. I don’t know if I have my blinders on as well since I’ve always sold software. You know, we’ve always used webinars.

Do you think webinars are more centric to a technical sale or are you guiding people to use webinars in other industries?

Todd: Definitely other industries. What really led me to go really deep on webinars was a research project I completed. I think B2B SaaS companies are the world’s best content marketers. I think almost by necessity if you’re going to- if you believe in the whole education model for marketing, I think B2B SaaS people are the best at it. So, what I did was I found a public ranking of the top 300 SaaS companies and then I opted into their some piece of gated content that was on their homepage. Then, I hired two data scientists to track all of the data points about how people email a cold lead and what do they do to nurture it. What came out of that was a ridiculous amount of research. I was shocked because the number one thing that SaaS companies email cold prospects about, or in this case at the top of funnel prospects. They email number one about, you know, blog posts, basic content on the website. Number two is a webinar. That made me dive deeper into why is the second most popular content type of an email going to be a webinar and now I’ve gone so far down the rabbit hole, I can’t come back out.

Scott: Wow. Why do you think the webinars were number two? I mean, I could guess, but did the research like explicitly tell you a definitive answer or are they just one. They [laughter] I mean, they’re easy to produce and they’re easy to consume. So, is that the reason or was it something else?

Your email research found webinars are the second most prominent follow on offer? Why do you think that is?

Todd: What I’ve been kind of extrapolated from all the data and then by talking to enough people is, it s a, high-intent high-value proposition for both sides. So you’re going to add more value in that then you will a blog post or an e-book or a social posts to the prospect and the prospect is giving you so much of their time and their attention. And of course, as you said, it’s easier to produce. So, we’ve got all the technology, webinar tools now to track everything you do. If you’re looking at another screen, did you click on the poll? All those things. So, I think it was just a matter of both parties win with a webinar. If you’re willing to invest the time and learn and sit in front of the computer and let someone presenting information to you, then you can also get on the prospect side. I’m going to hopefully learn something and not get schemed into a sales pitch when really, I was told I was going to learn something. So, I think both parties can win from it. And if you think about it, most of these bigger SaaS companies and when your ranking the top best a revenue was a variable in this third-party list. They have more resources and time. I think bigger companies ere on the side of webinar because they know it’s high value and they had the time and resources to produce them. Not everyone on the smaller side I think has.

Scott: Yeah, it’s a good conversion point too, between sales and marketing. Everyone always argues that with each other. Sales isn’t doing their job. Marketing isn’t doing their job. A webinar when someone attends and actually watches it or a meeting, they’re really good conversion points. You can more easily hand off a conversation if someone is already consumed all of your content and they’re interested just like in a meeting. So, I agree. I love them, because, one, they’re easy to consume. And luckily, we have a video player in our pocket at all time with the mobile device.

Todd: Right.

How do you see webinars evolving? Do you think, they’re going to be more prominent, less prominent?

Todd: Yeah. So, it’s interesting. I have my thesis, you know, has been kind of tested and tested and tested over the last few years. Hubspot figured out what I was doing and then GoToWebinar. Now I’ve got external data points where they’re helping me piece this together and so that’s become more clear to me. I don’t think the term webinar is obviously like you said, it’s old. Most of us have done them time and time again. I think the format of video and producing content where someone is more engaged in that and he hadn’t can commit more time and be tracked on what they’re doing. I think that whether you call it a webinar or whatever the new thing they’re going to call them but is only going to grow and knowing some of the things about go to webinars roadmap, where they’re taking it is exactly what you’re thinking Scott. It’s a video and it’s a great way to produce a video without hiring a videographer and we have all the screenshot capability. If you can add that in and mix it into your marketing automation software and track it properly, it becomes really really powerful. So, I think that’s where it’s headed now it’s not really that focused today. People are still using the traditional – I need registrations and then I’ll do a replay. We’ve expanded that model to be far greater than what it is today.

Scott: I’m curious what some of your standards to do’s are or not to do s? If you were talking to a senior marketer, how would you guide them to either do or not do with their next webinar? Say we’re going to produce one in a couple of weeks. Right?

How would you guide a senior marketer with their next webinar?

Todd: Perfect.

Scott: What are some tips?

Todd: I think there are a few key things to think about in the very beginning. Number one, as marketers, we love numbers. We love metrics. I think you’re worrying about the wrong metrics when you only think about registrations and attendees. Now, with all of these webinar platforms and because you’ve got a video player in your pocket, you also need to be thinking about this webinar system is going to export an MP4 or video file. I should have a content replication process because if you structure webinar content correctly, you can easily re-purpose this in multitudes of ways at all stages of the funnel. So that’s number one is like, stop worrying about the metrics. Number two, once you get that MP4, let’s think beyond the replay. Number three is from a presentation standpoint. We tell people unless you are Kevin Hart, the comedian, or you’re Adele the singer, you can’t hold an audience’s attention for 30 to 90 minutes with your one voice. You need to have a minimum of two people. One being the host MC. Much like the conversation we’re having here, Scott. Each of us is going to talk back and forth and hopefully add some value to your listeners and that’s what we try to do in our webinars. We have a host and then we have a thought leader and we have a cadence. Almost like a performance where we’re going to hand it back and forth to keep the person engaged and to put the thought leader properly on her throne. Which is what you want your thought leader inside your company to be. Not down here. You know the analogy I make Scott is my father is a retired minister. Whether you go to church or not, you can probably imagine if you came into any building and the person greeted you. Then, they walked to the front of the group. Then, they made announcements. Then, prayed and they took the money. Then, gave the sermon. It would be very odd. But in webinars, that’s what we do. We expect the one-man band. In my webinars, we don’t do that. We make sure there are two people and there is a cadence going back and forth to keep them hyper-engaged and put the thought leader up where they deserve to be.

Scott: Yeah, totally agree on the multiple speakers. Doing one by yourself is, one, you don’t, you know, your cadence gets off. You either go too slow or too fast [laughter] and you get stuck with like, okay, what was I going to say? You know, because I was just talking, and you weren’t even paying attention to yourself. So, [laughter] if that is happening then surely your audience has tuned out at that point.

What’s one of your, most successful webinars that you can recall? What made it so effective?

Todd: So, I, I think those metrics are important. I just think they’re kind of phase one and I think webinars should have multiple phases.

Scott: Yeah, they’re not the most important.

Todd: They’re not the most and they’re not metrics. So, a great example is a company that’s an applicant tracking software company. They’ve been around 14 years. They’ve done every possible marketing campaign you can imagine. They’ve got a good but not or, you not great market share in the industries they serve. They’re a very good company and when I talked to them and I suggested a webinar, their eyes roll because they’ve done that before and I said, look, here’s the difference. Why don’t the lowest hanging we can do for you is let’s go into your CRM and I will try what you would think is the hardest leads to prove to you it can work. Let’s go to the cold leads, the dead leads. And so, we did really a re-engagement webinar and the outcomes that we measured for success ultimately were we did leads that sales refused to hand to us. Like, you know how I mean I don’t, I’ve done a lot of selling of you, Scott, like we don’t want our hot leads to be messed with when we’re near to the closing phase, right? So that we don’t need them to be necessarily sent a webinar and that’s what happened here. I was literally sent people who would not speak to them or open emails and not only did we get the registrations and attendees far greater than they’ve ever had. What we did on the outcomes was we had someone reply who is the fourth largest prospect in his industry. We had that person reply and say, “This is great. I have this exact problem.” We made our title and our hook of our webinar be very targeted to the niche that he has a problem he has. And that guy is hilarious. The guy replied and said, have I not heard of you guys? And they’d been marketing to him for three years.

Scott: Wow.

Todd: They literally had a sales rep who had rotated through their sales cycle. They hand to another sales rep a year later and he never heard of the company. Because we did the invitations correctly, and this is another tip for people to use is you need to, if it’s on email, if your email is the promotion mechanism, make it a private webinar. Don’t put it on social. People like to feel like they’re having something exclusive. In this case, he was, it was private for 4,000 people we invited, but what it wasn’t, was put on twitter and everything else. We had that narrow hook of the title was the top five mistakes that X, you know, security business owners make with, I think it was, I’m trying to remember exact title with pre, oh, pre-hire, pre-hire tactics. Super Narrow, right? A guy who thinks he has hiring figured out is not going to sign up. Someone who’s in finance is not going to sign up because it’s for security companies. So, having that niche topic ended up being a great win with a big client for him but re-engaged a ton of leads that they thought before were just dead.

Scott: Yeah, love it, love it. Yeah, the best leads are probably in, you know, already in the system, right? Everybody’s always looking for more leads and more opportunities and more times than not, you already have them. You just don’t know them yet or they don’t know you. So, I liked that example. And then so I mean, did you measure the success because the guy replied, or did he become a customer or was you know?

How did you measure the success of your customer’s niche webinar?

Todd: He is a customer.

Scott: Perfect.

Todd: Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off there. A great question. The other measurement for us was we then put because we structure our content such as Top Three, Top Five, the whole Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed in some ways, I give them credit for programming human beings. We have to read things on the list and as marketers, we’ve jumped on that train because now we try to trump each other. Your top five versions going to be trumped by my blog post and the top seven ways to do something. So, we try to stick with that model because people seem to register, have higher registrations and replays. If you do the top three, top five mistakes, I think that’s their key part is you need to talk about a pain not, not reaching or getting gains, so that’s another key part about the hook, but the measurement for them was we splintered that content into five separate videos. We took the MP4 from GoToWebinar, we export it. Because the content was structured, one, two, three, four, five, It was very easy, very easy to pull that out. Then we armed the salespeople and they were using it. We found at the bottom of the funnel. So now Scott, if I’m the salesperson and you’re my prospect and I can’t quite push you over the edge and I’m looking for the objections that are stopping us from moving forward and I find out it’s about pre-hire screening and how do you manage that. I’m going to put- what the sales reps in this company we’re doing are they’re literally taking one of the videos that marketing had cut up for them and saying, Scott, I really appreciate what we’ve been discussing. I thought you’d find this useful and now they’re using it. They are re-purposing that content that was created once many different ways. They also did that in like a highlight reel. That’s one of the different ways when you look at metrics is how has that content replication strategy helped the entire organization? Where are we utilizing that asset, not just the live, you know, live event and the replay?

Scott: It’s a good idea. I would suspect that many people don’t do that, right? Because there’s a lot of post-production work that would need to happen, but you know, with some tools and some freelancers you can probably get that done relatively quickly and inexpensively.

Todd: Yeah, they use Fiverr.

Scott: Oh, yeah.

Todd: To MP4 and again. The content structure we gave them was such that we knew in advance we wanted to do this strategy. It allowed us to say here are going to be some clean breaks. It’s not a complex thing where you’re hiring, you know, a hundred dollar an hour videographer to come in and edit this up and final cut and chop it up and throw in lower threads. That’s not what they wanted to do. They ended up paying somebody, a videographer to actually do the highlight reel, which is a pretty clever deal. They also did one more thing, if you don’t mind me sharing with you. That was really where they took my model and changed it is they used polls at the beginning. I used to use polls only at the end, but they started getting a poll at the very beginning and their question was very memorable. It was, do you think you need more candidates to get a quality hire? And it was a head fake question and it was their idea of just getting people engaged by asking them for virtually anything to get them to click on a button. And the answers were: Yes, No, Is the Pope Catholic? Everybody got a laugh and clicked yes and Pope. And it was actually a head fake because then the host, not the thought leader. The host said, well, I’m glad you. Everyone thinks that’s the issue. I can’t wait for you to learn from our thought leader, Jeff when he talks about this topic because I think you’re going to be surprised. It’s not the quantity that you guys need to solve your problem and Jeff’s going to educate you about that today. So introducing, that was another great engagement point that they used that now most all of my clients use because it’s fun to see when you build something, other people make it better and better.

Scott: Yeah. That’s great. That’s great. Yeah, it’s good to force the engagement on the front end, right? Because like you said, most polls are either in the middle or the end, so I like that. Maybe I’ll do that next time.

Todd: It was clever. Yeah, it was clever.

Scott: Alright Todd, so, so you’ve inspired us to make our webinars better.

What you do or read or listen to or watch to stay on top of your game? How do you become inspired?

Todd: So I’m, of course, a listener. We’re doing this medium right now. I’m hardcore into audiobooks and podcasts. I don’t really read blogs. My main, if you think about continuous learning or professional development, my primary source is I spend real budget on traveling to conferences. I typically travel to six every year. I have three that I will never miss. Then I have three that I try every year. Sometimes I get duds, but I’m the, I come from the camp that I only need a nugget or two to bring back my company or to my clients to share with them that I’ve learned. I don’t need to have my life transformed. Right? I’ve done Tony Robbins. I’ve gone to those kinds of things too, but I actually go to conferences and it’s costly, but I found if you can come back and share with your team that value of Oh, is exposed, you know, two years ago to Messenger bots. Like that was early. We got the jump on the train early on that- on that trend because I’d heard it first at a speaker, but it was a really like cutting-edge marketing technology conference. That’s my number one way is outside of just being an avid reader and content consumer on the audio side, it’s, I go to conferences, I purposely seek out different conferences to see if I can learn new things.

Scott: Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah. I don’t go into a lot of conferences because I run the podcasts. I feel like I go to conferences every week. You’re the conference speaker today. I just basically run my own conference.

What people ask your advice on other than marketing and sales?

Todd: A lot of people asked me things related to business. If it’s the professional side, it’s scaling, right? Like, how do you scale a business because they’ve been able to scale a couple? The recruitment side is number one everybody comes back to. I’m trying to hire so and so and this is my challenge, right? So, I think people asked me that a lot. On the personal side, it’s typically about tennis. I love tennis. I played when I was younger and then didn’t play for 20 years and then got back into it. I got ridiculously hardcore about it. Then we had a baby and so I’m less hardcore about tennis, but I still am an avid advocate for people to join the game of tennis. It’s a fun social game and exercise is never a bad thing.

Scott: You’re the first tennis advocate. [laughter] That’s interesting. I used to play with a friend of mine years ago and then I fell off my bike and dislocated my shoulder really bad and I just stopped. Right. And I’m like man, and my shoulder still pops out all the time. The kids laugh at me [laughter]

If you didn’t have any responsibilities at home or work, Todd, what would you do with your time next week?

Todd: Yeah, I think I would play tennis if I didn’t have that, I would definitely play tennis. I also think that we have a young son and he’s 18 months old, our first child and we had children later in life and so I, I would make more time for family. Specifically, my wife had an idea literally like, hey, we need to do this during the day when they’re not all the crazy people are going to these holiday things. And I thought, man, I’m going to have to work that in somehow. I would spend more time with my son on a whole day basis of just giving my wife today off and giving myself more time with him is what I would love to spend more time. But I would also like, I mean, dude, I would read, I love to read and if I had my choice like we were on vacation last week and I read two books in one week because that’s what I love to do. So, I wouldn’t go to a conference with my free time. I want to play tennis though, but I would not go to a conference. I wouldn’t even do a webinar. I would be with my family, I would play tennis and I would read a lot.

Scott: That sounds great. That sounds great. So, Todd, if someone had a question for you based on anything that they heard today, what is your favorite way to be contacted?

Todd: I would say, you know, connect with me a webinar works. We’re all over the internet now or connect with me on LinkedIn are the two best ways to find me at any time and it’s webinarworks.io. If you want to learn more about that and, and there are free resources there for you for people that want to optimize or get started in a webinar.

Scott: All right, we’ll definitely a link back to all those free resources because we’re going to subscribe to you and see how you market us, right? Because that’s how you learned earlier.

Todd: There we go.

Scott: So, any closing thoughts, Todd, you want to leave us with?

Todd: I think the most overlooked marketing campaign today is webinars and I think it’s so rare because it marries together sales and marketing in a high intent way that other lead sources can’t provide.

Scott: Perfect. Perfect. Hey, well thank you so much for investing your time in my audience. I hope that we taught everybody that they need to optimize their webinar production capabilities and a good selling.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-produce-better-webinars-todd-earwood/feed/0In this episode of the podcast, I talk with, Todd Earwood. Todd is the founder and CEO over at Money Path where he and his team build growth campaigns using several tactics, but most importantly webinars. He does it so well the folks over at Hubspot and GoToWebinar encouraged him to help others and share [...]NoNo26:34Scott KingBuzzfeed, content marketing, GoToWebinar, hubspot, webinarKnow Your Buyer Better – MaryAnn Holderhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/know-your-buyer-better-maryann-holder/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/know-your-buyer-better-maryann-holder/#respondThu, 29 Nov 2018 14:00:17 +0000https://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4682In this episode of the show, I talk with the CMO of One Network, MaryAnn Holder. MaryAnn talks about really knowing buyer and serving them with information tailored to their personalities and education. She explains how she looks for ideas outside of her core circles at fashion and dance to energize her content for her different buyer personas.

Questions During Episode

What are you working on for One Network?

What do you think are some of the like top-line challenges for marketers for chief marketing officers or maybe even their suppliers?

When you say buyer, are you talking about the supplier-buyer the individual persona like all of the above?

How many degrees deep do you think your buyer persona is?

How do marketers need to address these diverse buyer challenges?

Where do you look for ideas?

If marketers need to innovate and generate new ideas, where can they look instead of generating the same old content?

How do you see digital marketing or digital experiences evolving?

Why do you look to the fashion industry?

Do you have a fashion background?

Are you recruiting Millennials or Generation Z on your staff?

Who or what do you listen to, watch, or read to get inspiration?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

If someone had a question for you what is your preferred method to receive questions?

Closing thoughts?

Contact MaryAnn

Transcript

What are you working on today at One Network?

Well, it’s good that you asked. We were working on a lot of great initiatives for 2019, especially
around AI. We’re looking at how artificial intelligence is impacting the supply chain and how our solution can really help companies to better their supply chain and their relationships with their supplier networks.

What do you think are some of the like top-line challenges for marketers for chief marketing officers or maybe even their suppliers?

We are working on personalization. Really getting that right tailored content to our individual buyers and the community that surrounds them. When you think about a network, every buyer comes with their own network and a set of influencers that need to be messaged to accordingly. We have to really figure out what that message is and hone in on it and deliver it in a really personal way that it’s not canned or automated. There is a challenge in identifying the right technologies to help us do that. Then, also, the right types of content. Then

When you say buyer, are you talking about the supplier-buyer the individual persona like all of the above?

The supplier-buyer has their own sort of set of needs and research materials and places that they go to get information. But, when you think about an individual buying they are influenced by their immediate sphere and there may be their generation maybe their educational status and where they reside in the organization. Along with that, we build buyer personas. The buyer persona really helps us to map out who we’re talking to and what types of things and what types of issues really would make them tick and make a decision.

How many degrees deep do you think your buyer persona is?

The same buyer group has multiple. A lot of times they’re at VP level, director level, C-level people.

They have the same kind of educational background but do yours vary? For instance, if you’re trying to provide a solution to someone, are you dealing with multiple educational boundaries or
any type of boundary like that?

Well in a certain sense, yes. The office of the CFO is going to have a different, well, maybe not different educational status, but they’ll certainly have a different bent to their studies. They will have a different focus. We market to the whole organization when we’re looking at the supply chain. What we’re looking at the office of the CFO, the office of the CIO, the office of the CEO and then the office of supply chains. All of those buying units have their own individual needs that they have to balance within the greater organizational structure. When we build out our buyer personas, we look very closely at what are the things that are going to make that person a superstar even down to what are the types of people. I mean we look at the psychographics as well as the basic demographics that you get for a position such as a supply chain director. We might look at an engineering background and the way they make decisions so a lot of that factors into how we message to that.

How should marketers address those challenges?

I think it’s really getting the heart of how people consume the information that they want. We are living in the information era. The digital era of information. With the advent of the internet first in
the early 1990s through now. With all the newest latest modes of communications such as YouTube and different parts and pieces of different parameters within communication and content, people are really geared sometimes in one direction, being visual, being auditory,
being a reading learner. If you think back on the educational status of someone, sometimes age sometimes the demographics will tell you where they might reside in that spectrum of learning. But, really when you’re consuming data for your organization, it’s you’re on a learning process because you’re looking for the newest and the latest information to help you shine in your position and help make you a better employee, a better partner you know with your suppliers with your organization.

If we need to find ideas on how to engage all these different audience members especially as technology and people evolve, do you look at other industries and see what they’re doing?

That’s a good question because we’re evolving so fast. The landscape is changing really quickly. I think people’s consumption is changing very quickly. We look at a lot of different factors. We’re increasingly a social media world and is very heavily influenced by social media, the characters, and the stars and the tenants of that generation that has been raised on a social media platform. It s multi-generational so we’re we’re consuming things in smaller sound bytes but that doesn’t mean that the smaller sound bytes can’t something very very applicable and really relevant to what your needs are. We look at the social media
world. We look at the music world. We look at the fashion world. B2B, oftentimes, we might get stuck in sort of an ivory tower. But, if you look beyond that into the B2C world how consumers are consuming in the consumer market, it really leads in terms of what the next generation of B2B is going to adopt. You can call it a bullwhip effect.

We are oftentimes reacting to how people are being trained in the consumer world. Their expectation in the consumer world is so far and above what they expect in the B2B marketing world. How can AI help us make better decisions with all of the data?

Using AI for all this definitely will help over time. We can track in our technology where
the trends are, most buying patterns and how suppliers and hubs interact with one another and what are the modes and mechanisms that make a company more efficient. If you think about supply chain and the efficiencies and the inefficiencies that they can have, we look very heavily at the data to see where people are saving operationally and where they’ve been able to aggregate economies of scale by using a network platform. Again, the technology is changing us. We’re shaping the technology but the technology is shaping us.

You mentioned fashion earlier. Is that somewhere do you look for ideas in the fashion industry?

I don’t have a background in the fashion industry but it’s it’s a passion. I look to the visuals that are being created in fashion and in the social media norms that we see out there. Our perceptions are being shifted by a lot of the visual, not just data that we’re receiving, but the imagery that we’re receiving. Shapes and design and a lot of the creative process that’s happening right now, the look is very different from the 1990s.

Do you think we as B2B marketers could get engagement from the fashion industry or the music industry?

Maybe we just need to know our buyer a little bit better. The total surround, if you think about it people only embrace this around when they’re stark raving fans. Some of that boils down to the customer experience and how we interact with them on every level. If it’s a positive interaction, you’re more apt to have the stark raving fans. That generation that you’re talking about, there are external buyers and they’re going to expect that as they enter the workplace. They’re already entering the workspace. We see that the Millennials and now gen Z, they’re entering the workspace there’s an expectation that there should be delight and pleasure along with whatever solution they’re currently evaluating.

Do you have anybody like that on staff? Are you recruiting Millennials or GenZ?

We have a team with quite a few Millennials. We don’t have any GenZ. Well, we might we have one who’s on the coast maybe of Gen Z. It’s changed our parameters. It’s changed some of the things that we’re we’re actually creating right now. We’ve got much more emphasis on video. The thing that we’ve noticed is that people are consuming our video ten times the rate that they would be consuming our white papers or our very technical written briefs that maybe are digestible for an IT person but not necessarily for a line of a business person. We’re looking for those really salient points and for kind of a great graphical way to represent them. Video seems to be doing it for us right now.

Are you a stark raving fan of anything? Where do you find your personal inspiration?

I look in a lot of different places. I was a visual artist when I was younger. I was in the dance field so I understand movement and the visual appeal of the art form that is dance. I’m a big fan
of dance. Also, just the consumption of literature and books and art and again, fashion. I feel like there’s there are multiple ways that you can get your sphere of influence and art seems to be
at the center of it for me.

Is there like a number one person that you follow or listen to?

I listen to a lot of different artists. I’m a child of the 80s so I harked back to my eighties roots. Maybe it’s just a reflection on my life and looking at artists from the 80s. Mostly music right now so I’m just listening to a lot of that. I do a lot of reading. I’m very interested in the feminist movement, so I find that it’s interesting watching what’s happening with the young women in our country.

If you didn’t have any responsibilities at home or work next week, what would you do with your time other than listen to 80’s music and wear neon?

I’m a big fan of photography as well. I think I would love to pick up my camera and take
it and travel somewhere just beautiful and take images.

What do you like to photograph?

I like to photograph people. Again, I’m going back to dance and art forms and figure
forms. For me, figures can be people in nature scenarios and just really nice beautiful images of
expression.

Closing thoughts?

You can derive creative inspiration and ideation for your marketing campaigns in any sphere, in an academic setting, in any sort of fashion setting. Look beyond the norm. I think buyers and consumers get fatigued easily. We are apt to change dramatically and our technologies are changing so dramatically so we always need to be watchful to look beyond what’s working now and remember what works today might not work tomorrow.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/know-your-buyer-better-maryann-holder/feed/0In this episode of the show, I talk with the CMO of One Network, MaryAnn Holder. MaryAnn talks about really knowing buyer and serving them with information tailored to their personalities and education. She explains how she looks for ideas outside of her core circles at fashion and dance to energize her content for her [...]NoNo21:24Scott KingAI, content marketing, generationz, millenials, personalizationEngage Your Audience – Charlie Kinghttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/engage-your-audience-charlie-king/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/engage-your-audience-charlie-king/#respondThu, 22 Nov 2018 14:00:14 +0000https://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4665In this special Thanksgiving episode, I talk with my son, Charlie, on audience engagement and finding inspiration from live music performances. Charlie reviews some of the performances he has attended and ranks them on audience engagement.

Twenty One Pilots has a very interactive with the crowd called the “Clique.” The band invests a lot of money in the show. During the Blurryface tour everyone wore red. During the recent, Bandito tour the audience wears yellow. This audience is the most engaged.

Gorillaz builds superfans. The audience engages with the characters and sings along with the music. I often heard from people that have never seen them is whether or not there are cartoons playing or if there are actual people there. There are indeed a lot of band members and back up singers.

Charlie got to meet the band before the show with our friend Matt Hillyer. The only impression from back stage was there were video games and they acted like a bunch of dads.

The engagement at this show was very different from other shows. The audience is older and more subdued than that of other performances. The older crowd sang all of the songs from their college days. There were very few kids at this all-ages show.

The number one thing here is engagement. Jack prohibits smartphones at his concerts. I thought it was so people did not block the views of others behind but it is really for engagement purposes. Jack doesn t use a set list and feeds off the audience to find the next beat and song like DJs do. The end result is a quality product. I showed a picture of a jack white concert in a meeting of 50 people and had them guess when the picture was taken. All of the guesses were wrong. Many of the guesses were of dates prior to the iPhone launch. They were surprised to find out the picture was from the prior weekend.

Spoon has great songs and have been around a long time. There definitely is a grunge and alternative feel to the show. The set was pretty tight even though this was a smaller outdoor show. Being on the front row is always helpful.

This show felt like the Toadies show. The crowd was similar in age since it is the same genre and time period. I liked this show more than Charlie until Weezer came on. These guys have spanned multi-generational audiences especially now that they rerecorded Toto s Africa.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/engage-your-audience-charlie-king/feed/0In this special Thanksgiving episode, I talk with my son, Charlie, on audience engagement and finding inspiration from live music performances. Charlie reviews some of the performances he has attended and ranks them on audience engagement. Twenty One Pilots Twenty One Pilots has a very interactive with the crowd called the “Clique.” The band invests [...]NoNo23:50Scott KingengagementHacking Humans – Juan Felipe Camposhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/hacking-humans-juan-felipe-campos/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/hacking-humans-juan-felipe-campos/#respondThu, 15 Nov 2018 14:00:40 +0000https://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4641In this episode I am talking with Juan Felipe Campos or @juannikin.” Juan is a Silicon Valley-based growth hacker and VP of Tech and Partner at Manos Accelerator via Google Launchpad. Juan consults startups on growth and customer acquisition. Throughout his career Juan and his team have grown several online communities exceeding 100,000 members. He currently runs the largest growth hacking group in Silicon Valley and joins me on the podcast to talk about hacking humans instead of hacking the social media platforms in order to build your community.

Questions During Podcast

Many people and companies want to build a community or a following. You built an enormous community. How did you do it?

What was the top challenge when getting started?

How did you overcome it?

What do you consider the most valuable component or portion of your community?

How do you see digital marketing or digital experiences evolving?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

Contact Juan

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/hacking-humans-juan-felipe-campos/feed/0In this episode I am talking with Juan Felipe Campos or @juannikin.” Juan is a Silicon Valley-based growth hacker and VP of Tech and Partner at Manos Accelerator via Google Launchpad. Juan consults startups on growth and customer acquisition. Throughout his career Juan and his team have grown several online communities exceeding 100,000 members. He [...]NoNo27:19Scott Kingbrain science, content marketing, Facebook, growth hacking, growth marketing, psychology, TwitterThrough the Sound – Arthur Samuel Josephhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/sound-arthur-samuel-joseph/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/sound-arthur-samuel-joseph/#respondThu, 01 Nov 2018 13:00:32 +0000https://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4614Arthur Samuel Joseph is the founder and chairman of the Vocal Awareness Institute. Arthur is widely recognized as one of the world s foremost communication strategists and authorities on the human voice.

His voice and leadership training programs teach Communication Mastery through a disciplined regimen of specific techniques designed to cultivate an embodied and enhanced leadership and personal presence. He s coached Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery, Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey, Jerry Rice, and many more.

In this episode, Arthur talks to me about what vocal mastery is and why we need it. He provides tips you can practice to warm up your voices and have a huge vocal presence. Arthur provides several client stories and a very heartwarming tale from his biggest transformation.

Sponsor

This episode is sponsored by Vocal Awareness Institute. Vocal Awareness is useful to everyone who speaks, but it can be even more powerful for those individuals with specific goals to have a vocal presence. Whether you are a sales professional, athlete, singer, politician, or stars like Angelina Jolie and Pierce Brosnan, Vocal Awareness has tools so you can capture audiences. Go to vocalawareness.com/scottking to see how to “Deliver Any Presentation Like a Pro” and receive $100 off of the Visual Voice pro by entering promo code 100OFFVVP.

Questions During Podcast

What is vocal mastery? Who is it for?

What are some routines or steps you recommend to become a better orator?

What did you learn from actors like Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery and who do you think made the biggest transformation?

How can those listening tell better stories and break through all of the noise?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

Contact Arthur

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/sound-arthur-samuel-joseph/feed/0Arthur Samuel Joseph is the founder and chairman of the Vocal Awareness Institute. Arthur is widely recognized as one of the world s foremost communication strategists and authorities on the human voice. His voice and leadership training programs teach Communication Mastery through a disciplined regimen of specific techniques designed to cultivate an embodied and enhanced leadership [...]NoNo36:28Scott Kingpresence, presentation, voiceGet Off the Hamster Wheel – Arnold Huffmanhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/get-off-the-hamster-wheel-arnold-huffman/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/get-off-the-hamster-wheel-arnold-huffman/#respondThu, 25 Oct 2018 13:00:43 +0000https://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4595Arnold Huffman is the Founder and CEO of Digital Yalo, a digital content, communications and channel strategy agency. There he is building a team focused on creating compelling content that is informative and entertaining. Arnold s background includes marketing, business development, and alliances in high tech and software.

In this episode, Arnold talks about finding marketing inspiration from other art forms and how these applications can help you create a fresh perspective.

Questions During Podcast

More content is being produced than ever before. How do brands break through the vendor fatigue?

You have to be differentiated, not only in your value prop but how you say it, how you present it and how you push it out. This requires atypical thinking to get outside of the rinse and repeat many marketers get stuck in. Look at the problem from a different angle. We use film, art, music, and sports to help inspire our clients thinking and to produce an atypical result. It also helps distill the hopes, dreams and ideas for a campaign or a website or an event into a singular emotional concept. Emotion delivers the best results, because it gets noticed in the market.

What is the best content you have seen in 2018? Why did you like it?

How do you see digital marketing, content and experiences evolving?

More impactful storylines and more interactive technology integrating into marketing campaigns will elevate your campaign. You may not make the best or most interesting product or service, but that doesn t mean you can t push it s agenda with an interesting story.

White paper or video? Podcasts?

I’d produce all of them. You need written content for SEO and to be found. You need video for engagement. Content is like a mall. You never know which door of the mall someone will enter through or have a preference for. Marketings need have all the doors ready for people to enter and engage.

What can brands learn from emerging disruptive brands?

Watch HOW those disruptive brands get your attention. There is a very short window to grab attention. It s like an iceberg. The apex of the iceberg is above the waterline and that is the window you have to get someone s attention. Don t weigh them down with all the details of the product or service. That happens later in the marketing funnel once you have them interested. You should constantly bubble the best of the best from the bottom of the iceberg to above the waterline to make an impact. Elevating your vibe will differentiate your company and gain attention.

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

I listen to a lot of music. Gene Simmons of Kiss is a branding master and is an excellent inspiration. Kiss’s shock and awe, gets your attention and engages you. As far as marketing inspiration and boundaries, I read every page of Fast Company.

What do people ask your advice on?

People ask my advise on changing the game and looking at sales and marketing from a different perspective. This is why I find inspiration in film, art, music and sports to energize ideas from other industries or applications.

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

If I am not working I am hanging out with my kids, listening to music or exercising.

Closing thoughts?

Dare to be different to reach a different result and get off the marketing hamster wheel. Defy. Fly.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/get-off-the-hamster-wheel-arnold-huffman/feed/0Arnold Huffman is the Founder and CEO of Digital Yalo, a digital content, communications and channel strategy agency. There he is building a team focused on creating compelling content that is informative and entertaining. Arnold s background includes marketing, business development, and alliances in high tech and software. In this episode, Arnold talks about finding marketing [...]NoNo30:50Scott Kinganalog, music, storytelling10 Places You Should Be Using Video – George B. Thomashttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/10-places-you-should-be-using-video-george-b-thomas/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/10-places-you-should-be-using-video-george-b-thomas/#respondThu, 18 Oct 2018 13:00:38 +0000https://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4571In this episode, I talk with George B. Thomas. George is a recovering youth pastor, former pub bouncer and is currently an evangelist at Impulse Creative. He is a video marketing ninja and an inbound marketing Jedi with every HubSpot certification one can have. George and I talk about why you should be using video and where you should be using it. He mentions many tools, sites, services and experts to help you build your video toolbox so please take a look at the show notes for these and the 10 places you should be using video. I hope his infectious energy moves and inspires you to do more. Please welcome George B. Thomas.

Contact George

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/10-places-you-should-be-using-video-george-b-thomas/feed/0In this episode, I talk with George B. Thomas. George is a recovering youth pastor, former pub bouncer and is currently an evangelist at Impulse Creative. He is a video marketing ninja and an inbound marketing Jedi with every HubSpot certification one can have. George and I talk about why you should be using video [...]NoNo39:23Scott KingDrift, hubspot, Loom, video, Vidyard, WistiaMarketing to Generation Z – Kathleen Hesserthttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-to-generation-z-kathleen-hessert/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-to-generation-z-kathleen-hessert/#respondThu, 04 Oct 2018 13:00:46 +0000https://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4512Kathleen Hessert (@kathleenhessert) has invested over 30 years working with premier sports and entertainment brands from Peyton Manning and Shaq to ESPN, Big ten network, NBA, and the NFL. Kathleen recognized the leagues and sports teams focused on current aging fans and lacked understanding on how to enlist and build young fan bases for the future. She guided these brands to develop programs to engage younger audiences and to ensure they became lifelong fans. Her work led her to develop WeRGenZ.

WeRGenZ is a research-based Teen Think Tank of more than 1000 kids. Its goal is to give voice to and amplify the voices of the generation that already spends $44 billion annually in the US and influences $600 billion in family spending. By 2020, GenZ, NOT Millennials, will be 40% of the US population. The rules that govern their lives will govern all of our lives. Those born after 1995 (the first true digital natives) are changing the way we consume information, adopt and use technology, evolve our economy into a token or cash-based economy. They embrace and expect diversity from brands and in fact will be the first predominantly non-white U.S. generation. GenZ ers also think globally and have a well developed social conscience. Their backyard is the world, not a street address.

In this episode, I talk with Kathleen about GenZ’s influence will have on the future and what companies and employers can do to properly recruit and engage this group.

Contact Kathleen

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-to-generation-z-kathleen-hessert/feed/0Kathleen Hessert (@kathleenhessert) has invested over 30 years working with premier sports and entertainment brands from Peyton Manning and Shaq to ESPN, Big ten network, NBA, and the NFL. Kathleen recognized the leagues and sports teams focused on current aging fans and lacked understanding on how to enlist and build young fan bases for the future. [...]NoNo33:14Scott Kinggenerationz, millenialsMarketing Continues to Become More Difficult – Michael Redbordhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-continues-become-difficult-michael-redbord/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-continues-become-difficult-michael-redbord/#respondThu, 14 Jun 2018 13:00:43 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4258

Michael Redbord ( @redbord ) is the General Manager of the Service Hub at HubSpot. Prior to that, Michael scaled the HubSpot Customer Support team from 20 people in a single office with single-language phone support to more than 200 people powering a global, multi-lingual, multi-channel support experience. In doing so, Michael turned HubSpot s customer support team from a cost center to a profit center and one of HubSpot s greatest engines of growth, with an unimaginable revenue retention rate of over 100%. Essentially, the revenue the sales and marketing teams generate is worth more because of the customer success team. Michael is a noted writer, speaker, and former competitive classical pianist — in case you re looking for a conversation starter.

Questions During Podcast

What do you consider the biggest challenge for CMOs and marketers today?

How do marketing teams need to address these challenges?

How have you seen digital marketing or digital experiences evolve over your time at Hubspot?

What reports or data points or KPIs do you monitor in order to optimize?

What steps are you optimizing today?

What was one of your most successful moment? What do you brag about?

What is the toughest support case you had to battle while at Hubspot?

What did you learn from that and how do you avoid that from happening again?

How do you manage references and reviews?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

What do people ask your advice on?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-continues-become-difficult-michael-redbord/feed/0Michael Redbord ( @redbord ) is the General Manager of the Service Hub at HubSpot. Prior to that, Michael scaled the HubSpot Customer Support team from 20 people in a single office with single-language phone support to more than 200 people powering a global, multi-lingual, multi-channel support experience. In doing so, Michael turned HubSpot s customer [...]NoNo30:25Scott KinghubspotHow I Received 10,000 On-line Reviews – Brian Greenberghttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-i-received-10000-on-line-reviews-brian-greenberg/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-i-received-10000-on-line-reviews-brian-greenberg/#respondThu, 07 Jun 2018 13:00:46 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4245Brian Greenberg has founded businesses in e-commerce, marketing, and financial services. He has generated over $50 million in revenue from his businesses but has been called has been called The Salesman Who Doesn t Sell. He has also collected over 10,000 on-line reviews and testimonials from his customers.

In this episode, Brian explains his process on how he obtains so many online reviews and how much money this is worth to him. He talks about patterns he has identified and what he does when he receives a poor review.

Questions During Podcast

How did you get 10,000 on-line reviews?

Who manages this for you?

What is your process?

Have you identified any patterns of how people contact you?

Describe a time when you received a bad review. What did you do about it?

What did you learn from that and how do you avoid that from happening again?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

What do people ask your advice on?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

Contact Brian

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-i-received-10000-on-line-reviews-brian-greenberg/feed/0Brian Greenberg has founded businesses in e-commerce, marketing, and financial services. He has generated over $50 million in revenue from his businesses but has been called has been called The Salesman Who Doesn t Sell. He has also collected over 10,000 on-line reviews and testimonials from his customers. In this episode, Brian explains his process on [...]NoNo23:42Scott Kingsemrush, SEOYour Brain is the Puppy or the Puppet Master – Ulli Appelbaumhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/your-brain-is-the-puppy-or-the-puppet-master-ulli-appelbaum/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/your-brain-is-the-puppy-or-the-puppet-master-ulli-appelbaum/#respondThu, 31 May 2018 13:00:02 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4229Ulli Appelbaum ( @FirstThetrouser ) is an international marketing and brand strategist. He is an expert in coming up with fresh perspectives to position a brands, products and companies. Ulli has developed a strategy exercise into a technique he calls Positioning-Roulette. Positioning-Roulette is a culmination of 1200 case studies provided as 26 flash cards. The flash cards promote creative thinking and facilitate a conversation from various perspectives.

In this episode, Ulli talks to me about creative thinking, branding and biases and limits we place on ourselves when looking looking at brands, reading news and interacting with services and brands.

Questions During Podcast

What is Positioning-Roulette?

Where dis the 1200 case studies come from?

What is some of the feedback resulting from the roulette exercise?

Why aren t business people more creative and what can they do about it?

What can brands learn from successful marketers?

What was one of your most successful campaigns? Why was it successful?

Describe a time when a project you were overseeing did not go well?

What did you learn from that and how do you avoid that from happening again?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/your-brain-is-the-puppy-or-the-puppet-master-ulli-appelbaum/feed/0Ulli Appelbaum ( @FirstThetrouser ) is an international marketing and brand strategist. He is an expert in coming up with fresh perspectives to position a brands, products and companies. Ulli has developed a strategy exercise into a technique he calls Positioning-Roulette. Positioning-Roulette is a culmination of 1200 case studies provided as 26 flash cards. The [...]NoNo48:06Scott Kingbrand development, brandingDon’t Overthink SEO – Ashley Wardhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/dont-overthink-seo-ashley-ward/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/dont-overthink-seo-ashley-ward/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 13:00:05 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4195Ashley Ward ( @ashleymadhatter ) is a former journalist now serving as an expert content marketer and corporate evangelist for SEM Rush. Ashley previously founded and served as CEO for Madhouse Marketing performing digital marketing and business development.

In this episode, Ashley talks to me about SEO expectations and how getting back to the basics serves a site in the long term. She provides examples from past campaigns and what she learned in order to transfer that knowledge to her digital marketing students. Ashley finishes with tips on SEM, public speaking and travel.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects. Visit ScaleX.ai/scott and receive three Playbooks for dormant Leads, downgraded opportunities and the popular outbound playbook.

Contact Ashley

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/dont-overthink-seo-ashley-ward/feed/0Ashley Ward ( @ashleymadhatter ) is a former journalist now serving as an expert content marketer and corporate evangelist for SEM Rush. Ashley previously founded and served as CEO for Madhouse Marketing performing digital marketing and business development. In this episode, Ashley talks to me about SEO expectations and how getting back to the basics serves a [...]NoNo32:17Scott Kingcontent marketing, semrush, SEOWhat You Are Saying Without Saying It – Matt Bullhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/what-you-are-saying-without-saying-it-matt-bull/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/what-you-are-saying-without-saying-it-matt-bull/#respondThu, 17 May 2018 13:00:05 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4180Matt Bull’s first job was working for the Superconducting SuperCollider in Waxahachie, designing user interfaces for the vacuum Control Systems Division. He spent three years studying BioPhysics at Rice before realizing he hated lab work, then crammed in an English major at the last minute. He then spent 16 years at the Richards Group, working on nearly every major brand on the roster.

This episode is the second of two episodes with Matt. In the first episode, Matt talks to me about causal marketing and how brands should develop personalities to isolate digital noise. This episode is all about what you are saying to your audience without explicitly saying it. Matt provides some examples of how advertising said the opposite of what it wanted to.

When Matt isn’t marketing for causes and building brands, he is riding his bike around Oak Cliff, spending time with family and combing Reddit’s first page of the internet.

Contact Matt

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/what-you-are-saying-without-saying-it-matt-bull/feed/0Matt Bull’s first job was working for the Superconducting SuperCollider in Waxahachie, designing user interfaces for the vacuum Control Systems Division. He spent three years studying BioPhysics at Rice before realizing he hated lab work, then crammed in an English major at the last minute. He then spent 16 years at the Richards Group, working [...]YesNo16:50Scott Kingadvertisting, RedditEliminate the Friction Points – Esteban Martinezhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/eliminate-friction-points-esteban-martinez/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/eliminate-friction-points-esteban-martinez/#respondThu, 10 May 2018 13:00:35 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4145Esteban Martinez ( @addicted2ppc ) is an SEM specialist, trainer & speaker, with a strong passion for helping organizations become successful online. He has been building and optimizing SEM campaigns for a range of B2B and B2C clients in different industries since 2002 in the UK and Australia.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects. Visit ScaleX.ai/scott and receive three Playbooks for dormant Leads, downgraded opportunities and the popular outbound playbook.

Contact Esteban

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/eliminate-friction-points-esteban-martinez/feed/0Esteban Martinez ( @addicted2ppc ) is an SEM specialist, trainer & speaker, with a strong passion for helping organizations become successful online. He has been building and optimizing SEM campaigns for a range of B2B and B2C clients in different industries since 2002 in the UK and Australia. Sponsors This episode of The Scott King Show is [...]NoNo27:01Scott Kingmoz, ppc, search engine land, semrush, SEOCausal Marketing – Matt Bullhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/causal-marketing-matt-bull/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/causal-marketing-matt-bull/#respondThu, 03 May 2018 13:00:05 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4115Matt Bull’s first job was working for the Superconducting SuperCollider in Waxahachie, designing user interfaces for the vacuum Control Systems Division. He spent three years studying BioPhysics at Rice before realizing he hated lab work, then crammed in an English major at the last minute. He then spent 16 years at the Richards Group, working on nearly every major brand on the roster.

In this episode, Matt talks to me about causal marketing and how brands should develop personalities to isolate digital noise. When Matt isn’t marketing for causes and building brands, he is riding his bike around Oak Cliff, spending time with family and combing Reddit’s first page of the internet.

Contact Matt

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/causal-marketing-matt-bull/feed/0Matt Bull’s first job was working for the Superconducting SuperCollider in Waxahachie, designing user interfaces for the vacuum Control Systems Division. He spent three years studying BioPhysics at Rice before realizing he hated lab work, then crammed in an English major at the last minute. He then spent 16 years at the Richards Group, working [...]YesNo3:43Scott Kingbrand development, branding, causal marketingThe Marketing Value of History – Rich Jurekhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/the-marketing-value-of-history-rich-jurek/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/the-marketing-value-of-history-rich-jurek/#respondThu, 26 Apr 2018 13:00:25 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4098In this episode, I talk with Chief Marketing & Communications Officer of the Inland Group, Rich Jurek. Rich heads the in-house marketing and communication group and is co author of the best selling book “Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program”.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects. Visit ScaleX.ai/scott and receive three Playbooks for dormant Leads, downgraded opportunities and the popular outbound playbook.

Contact Rich

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/the-marketing-value-of-history-rich-jurek/feed/0In this episode, I talk with Chief Marketing & Communications Officer of the Inland Group, Rich Jurek. Rich heads the in-house marketing and communication group and is co author of the best selling book “Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program”. Sponsors This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by [...]NoNo37:55Scott Kingbranding, storytelling, strategyHow to Market to the Government – Lou Anne Brossmanhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-market-to-the-government-lou-anne-brossman/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-market-to-the-government-lou-anne-brossman/#respondThu, 19 Apr 2018 13:00:07 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4067Lou Anne Brossman has over 30 years of public sector government marketing leadership experience gained while working at leading companies like Juniper Networks, immixGroup, EMC. Her manufacturing roots enable her to empathize and relate to corporate issues that her federal marketing customers are facing. She is a sought out speaker on Government marketing best practices and is a recognized expert on thought leadership campaigns on relevant federal, state and local government policies.

In this episode, Lou Anne talks to me about how to market to the Government and challenges marketers face on budget, content and misaligned expectations.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects. Visit ScaleX.ai/scott and receive three Playbooks for dormant Leads, downgraded opportunities and the popular outbound playbook.

Contact Lou Anne

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-market-to-the-government-lou-anne-brossman/feed/0Lou Anne Brossman has over 30 years of public sector government marketing leadership experience gained while working at leading companies like Juniper Networks, immixGroup, EMC. Her manufacturing roots enable her to empathize and relate to corporate issues that her federal marketing customers are facing. She is a sought out speaker on Government marketing best practices [...]NoNo32:33Scott King18F, Certifications, DOD, Federal, FedRAMPMoneyballing Brand Economics – Edgar Baumhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/moneyballing-brand-economics-edgar-baum/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/moneyballing-brand-economics-edgar-baum/#respondThu, 12 Apr 2018 13:00:09 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=4030Edgar Baum ( @EdgarBaum ) is the Chief Brand Economist at Strata Insights. In this episode, Edgar describes a contemporary brand measurement approach to measure effectiveness and describes a case study how a tech company outmaneuvered the competition. If you are familiar with Moneyball, you will understand brand economics. Just as Billy Bean used a different dataset to formulate different outcomes, Edgar advises us on how to measure our brands in the internet era.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects. Visit ScaleX.ai/scott and receive three Playbooks for dormant Leads, downgraded opportunities and the popular outbound playbook. These playbooks have proven to increase lead conversion rates over 400%.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/moneyballing-brand-economics-edgar-baum/feed/0Edgar Baum ( @EdgarBaum ) is the Chief Brand Economist at Strata Insights. In this episode, Edgar describes a contemporary brand measurement approach to measure effectiveness and describes a case study how a tech company outmaneuvered the competition. If you are familiar with Moneyball, you will understand brand economics. Just as Billy Bean used a [...]NoNo46:18Scott KingbrandingContent Marketing Attribution – TJ Waldorfhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/content-marketing-attribution-tj-waldorf/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/content-marketing-attribution-tj-waldorf/#respondThu, 05 Apr 2018 13:00:31 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3999TJ Waldorf ( @tj_waldorf ) is Vice President of Growth Marketing for INAP. TJ has led both sales and marketing teams and drives the marketing to make data driven decisions, and more importantly, revenue metrics. Currently based in the Chicagoland area, TJ spends his free time with his wife and 7 year old son. TJ and I talk about content marketing attribution, seo and how sales teams should leverage content.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects. Visit ScaleX.ai/scott and receive three Playbooks for dormant Leads, downgraded opportunities and the popular outbound playbook. These playbooks have proven to increase lead conversion rates over 400%.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/content-marketing-attribution-tj-waldorf/feed/0TJ Waldorf ( @tj_waldorf ) is Vice President of Growth Marketing for INAP. TJ has led both sales and marketing teams and drives the marketing to make data driven decisions, and more importantly, revenue metrics. Currently based in the Chicagoland area, TJ spends his free time with his wife and 7 year old son. TJ [...]NoNo28:00Scott Kingbizible, content marketing, moz, netsuite, SEO, social sellingPodcasting Built My Business – Doug Sandlerhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/podcasting-built-my-business-doug-sandler/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/podcasting-built-my-business-doug-sandler/#respondThu, 29 Mar 2018 13:00:43 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3984In this episode, I talk with Doug Sandler ( @djdoug ). Doug is a nationally recognized speaker, trainer, and podcaster. His podcast with Strickland Bonner, The Nice Guys on Business, has over 500 episodes and more than 1 Million downloads. Doug uses that experience to help businesses and brands grow their audience with TurnKey Podcasting.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects. Visit ScaleX.ai/scott and receive three Playbooks for dormant Leads, downgraded opportunities and the popular outbound playbook. These playbooks have proven to increase lead conversion rates over 400%.

Links and Mentions

Contact Doug

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/podcasting-built-my-business-doug-sandler/feed/0In this episode, I talk with Doug Sandler ( @djdoug ). Doug is a nationally recognized speaker, trainer, and podcaster. His podcast with Strickland Bonner, The Nice Guys on Business, has over 500 episodes and more than 1 Million downloads. Doug uses that experience to help businesses and brands grow their audience with TurnKey Podcasting. [...]NoNo20:51Scott Kingarianna huffington, gary vaynerchukUsing Humor in Storytelling – Kathy Klotz-Guesthttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/using-humor-in-storytelling-kathy-klotz-guest/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/using-humor-in-storytelling-kathy-klotz-guest/#respondThu, 22 Mar 2018 13:00:52 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3957In this episode I talk with speaker, author, and improv comedian, Kathy Klotz-Guest ( @kathyklotzguest ). Kathy left the Silicon Valley hustle but she didn t leave her passion for telling better stories and banishing boring marketing behind. Kathy and I talk about how business storytelling drives great marketing, innovation and culture and how she came up with the term, #jargonmonoxide.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects.

Contact Kathy

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/using-humor-in-storytelling-kathy-klotz-guest/feed/0In this episode I talk with speaker, author, and improv comedian, Kathy Klotz-Guest ( @kathyklotzguest ). Kathy left the Silicon Valley hustle but she didn t leave her passion for telling better stories and banishing boring marketing behind. Kathy and I talk about how business storytelling drives great marketing, innovation and culture and how she came up with [...]NoNo32:07Scott KingEmpathy, intel, intuit, Jargon, microsoft, storytelling10 Copywriting Tips – Kate Toonhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/10-copywriting-tips-kate-toon/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/10-copywriting-tips-kate-toon/#respondThu, 15 Mar 2018 13:00:42 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3920Kate Toon ( @KateToon ) is an award-winning SEO copywriter and SEO consultant. She has worked with big brands like Westpac, The RTA, Curash and Kmart.

She is the founder of The Clever Copywriting School and The Recipe for SEO Success eCourse to help countless businesses produce great content and improve their SEO. She also is the co-host the Hot Copy Podcast.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects.

Contact Kate

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/10-copywriting-tips-kate-toon/feed/0Kate Toon ( @KateToon ) is an award-winning SEO copywriter and SEO consultant. She has worked with big brands like Westpac, The RTA, Curash and Kmart. She is the founder of The Clever Copywriting School and The Recipe for SEO Success eCourse to help countless businesses produce great content and improve their SEO. She also is the [...]NoNo38:49Scott Kingcopywriting, SEOThe Wild Pendulum – Sam Mallikarjunanhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/wild-pendulum-sam-mallikarjunan/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/wild-pendulum-sam-mallikarjunan/#respondThu, 08 Mar 2018 14:00:38 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3910In this episode, I talk with Sam Mallikarjunan (@Mallikarjunan ). Sam is an Executive Strategist at HubSpot and former Head of Growth at HubSpot Labs. Sam teaches Advanced Digital Marketing at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education, and is the co-author of the book, How To Sell Better Than Amazon. He talks to me here about personalization, empathy, artificial intelligence, and sales alignment. Thanks so much for joining and please welcome Sam Mallikarjunan to the show.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects.

Contact Sam

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/wild-pendulum-sam-mallikarjunan/feed/0In this episode, I talk with Sam Mallikarjunan (@Mallikarjunan ). Sam is an Executive Strategist at HubSpot and former Head of Growth at HubSpot Labs. Sam teaches Advanced Digital Marketing at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education, and is the co-author of the book, How To Sell Better Than Amazon. He talks to me here about [...]NoNo36:48Scott KingAI, Facebook, Feedly, hubspot, IFTTT, Slack, watsonThe Growth Marketing Playbook – Jon Brodyhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/the-growth-marketing-playbook-jon-brody/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/the-growth-marketing-playbook-jon-brody/#respondThu, 01 Mar 2018 14:00:27 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3854

Jon Brody (@ThePokerCEO) is the CEO at Ladder. Ladder is a growth marketing agency helping companies navigate and implement thousands of available tactics to grow revenues.

In this episode, Jon talks about his company’s growth marketing playbook, successes, failures and how his professional poker player past helps him market more effectively.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects. Visit ScaleX.ai/scott and receive three Playbooks for dormant Leads, downgraded opportunities and the popular outbound playbook. These playbooks have proven to increase lead conversion rates over 400%.

Podcast Transcription

Scott: Today we’ve got Jon Brody who is CEO, co-founder over at Ladder. You can reach him on Twitter if you have a question during the episode, while you’re listening or if you want to reach out to him after you listen. He’s @ThePokerCEO because he used to be a competitive poker player. We’re going to talk about that a little bit later. But Jon curious what Ladder is working on today. I know that you guys are some type of growth marketing agency and that’s kind of what I’m into. So, if you can just give us a little, maybe a commercial before we get started.

What does Ladder do?

Jon: Yes, absolutely. So everything we do at Ladder is based on the premise of us removing more guess work from how a company grows. Basically, what that means is the technology we build, the services that we offer especially SMBs is all based on the fact that growth is difficult because there is so much choice. There are literally thousands of things that you could do to get more traffic, convert more of that traffic and retain more of those leads or more of those customers. The really hard thing is you now have that choice that you have when it comes to digital marketing. It grows on almost weekly basis but that growth of choice has never actually been met by a system to help you prioritize out of all these things you could do, which you actually spend your time and money on. So, the Ladder Playbook which is our database of marketing tactics that is prioritized by actual performance data you that we collect and build. It all goes back to basically helping the business owner or helping the marketer when it comes to your own company prioritize better and just makes better choices. To help get a company from Point A to Point B where Point B should always be more revenues, more leads and there’s an improvement in their commercial bottom line.

Scott: Yes. You mean you mentioned the playbook and I took a look at it and that’s how I got connected with you. There are thousands of different items in there. It’s an excellent example of curating content and organizing it but you know there are so many. I’m really curious what makes a tactic worthy of being in the playbook and how do you help a customer navigate through all these? Reading the thousands of tactics out there would probably take longer than actually implementing one of those. How do customers figure that out? Because I couldn’t do it.

How do customers navigate through the growth marketing playbook?

Jon: Yes, you’re absolutely right. A good way of looking at the playbook is that those thousands of tactics represent the amount of choice that every business owner has at a given point in time. You’re absolutely right you know to just have that amount of choice is a representation of the reality, right? And the challenge that business owners and marketers have. What makes Ladder unique from a technology and also services point of view, is how we actually help a company prioritize out of those thousands of things. Which one should they actually spend their time on executing to get more traffic or convert more of that traffic or retain more customers? So, from the start when you look at that playbook every tactic has a purpose which is either get more traffic, convert more traffic or retain you know more of those customers and leads that you’re getting. The way that we prioritize is really two-fold. The first is that on all those tactics that we see in the playbook you know we’ve spent $10M building up a database of performance information on the success rates and the context on when they work and don’t work. We pair that up with our own expert services team to basically remove that guess work for a company and help prioritize which ones they actually should be working on.

Scott: If you help a customer or prospect prioritize the list, how many tactics do you implement? If a customer comes to you and they come on day zero and then they agree to become a client, how many are you trying at first? Are you trying one? Are you trying ten? What’s the number?

How do you help customers prioritize tactics in the playbook?

Jon: It’s a good question. On average we’re there to help build winning strategy that identifies where a company is weakest, right? When it comes to traffic or conversion and then based on that and the KPIs that we identify as needing improvement that we’re going to measure. We then start prioritizing on average ten tactics every single month to do the actual execution and reporting of to get those KPIs that drive commercial success and move in the right direction. How we pick that number, really came from most testing at ourselves and also modeling it after elite growth teams at company’s like HubSpot. The amount of experiments they’re able to execute in a given month that combines- be really aggressive on trying lots of things, to learn faster and drive performance faster, but also taking into account the realities of making sure you set up these tests and tactics in a scientific way. We’re able to actually learn from them and gain insights you know not just have information overload.

Scott: Yes, so you said ten tactics a week, right? So that to me it sounds-

Jon: A month.

Scott: A month?

Jon: Yes.

Scott: Okay. Still, it sounds like a lot.

How many people are required to do this both on your side and the client’s side?

Jon: Yes, that’s a great question. So on the client’s side, it really requires one point of contact whether it’s the CEO of the company or you know whoever is managing marketing. You’re absolutely right though, to actually execute that many tactics in a given month are really difficult. It’s also really difficult because a company’s growth is never just one thing, meaning there’s no silver bullet. It’s not just trying to spend some cash on Facebook and expecting success. It’s never just sending out you know e-mails to a prospecting list. In a given month, winning strategy involves KPIs that go beyond just focusing on one thing. It’s things from cross-channel traffic acquisition, creative and copywriting tests, all the way down to landing page tests and email automation testing. Now to actually do that it requires a really unique set of skills. With Ladder our whole service is model and this goes back to prioritizing, tactics based off of what’s most likely to work for our company and being agnostic to which tactics those are and then doing the full-service execution. You know at Ladder we basically modeled a growth team that we offered to our partners turnkey. So internally we have engineers, we have data analysts, we have strategists, we have copywriters and designers. They’re all there to make sure those tactics get executed in these given month sprints.

Scott: That makes sense. When you talk to prospects and you give them the pitch and you tell them you have all these tactics in this giant playbook? What kind of pushback do you get?

How many people think this is BS or what are some of the objections you hear?

Jon: I guess one of the first objection goes back to the main challenge that every prospect has which is, you know like how are you going to know what’s going to work, right? Which is a really fundamental question. The way we address that is that very transparently we accept the fact that you don’t know for certain what’s going to work until you try it. The way that we position ourselves as being the ultimate choice for our company to help navigate that uncertainty is — one, we have a complete set of data. We have more information to make decisions on and what’s going to work in the first place. Now that actually doesn’t guarantee that every single tactic will work. But, it does guarantee that when you work with Ladder you have more information, more data going into the decision making process. When it comes to the actual execution, because we accept the fact that we’re trying lots of new things each month to be prioritized unlike a typical marketing campaign or a typical agency or even in-house marketing team. You know we don’t just put all of our eggs in one basket or two baskets and spend a month putting lots of resource into one thing or a small set of things. We structure our monthly tactic sprints that we execute like scientific tests where every single one we’re trying to execute using the least amount of resource in terms of budget to prove the case for it. Then once we get back measurable improvement that’s when we can make a clear business case with our partners to double down and put more resource on those winning tactics.

Scott: Does, is there a favorite tactic of yours? Or, is there one that sticks out on the top of your mind that gets used most often? Depending on who your customers are and their kind of evolution and digital marketing that would vary.

Which tactic gets implemented more often than not and do you have a favorite?

Jon: Yes, great question. So I’ll mention two tactics here that I would say that if your and B2B. And you aren’t doing these two tactics right now, make sure you do them within the next month. So the first really goes to the demand generation. The interesting thing here is that you know just getting somebody to enter an information for a sales inquiry or a demo request, that’s really good. But at the end of the day you know as an owner of business you want yourself or your salespeople to actually get those requests booked in calendar. Just getting somebody to, submit demo requests is great, it shows intent. But at the end of the day, you need that book on the calendar to really start driving value from it. The way that Ladder approaches that are really through up-sell tactics on the, what we call the post success page, on your landing page. So typically when you go to a landing page and you fill out information for a demo request, you enter information and then you see something that says, “Hey, great. We’ll be in touch soon and to try schedule a call.” That’s a good way of getting let’s say 10% of those demo requests to actually book and meet with their sales team. The way to get the number to go from 10% to 25% or higher is to- on that post you know success page add in a simple button links to let’s say account or booking system that allows the prospect to automatically, at the moment when they’re most interested in your services, just to book right away. Book automatically you know in your calendar without requiring any more information on their part and not requiring your sales team to have to be hustling out there, you know chasing them down trying to get them to book. So, I think that would be one tactic that I would say, in the B2B space worked extremely well, but also is surprisingly rare for how a few companies actually execute.

Scott: Yes, you know a lot of times you’ll see the links in and an email signature to I think Calendly has a free service you can sign up for to book appointments. It’s a good point. Because if someone has intent right then you might as well you know help them book a specific time spot because you know you got to contact that guy inside like five or six minutes anyhow, before he moves on to something else. So that’s a good example.

Is that the tactic you recommend most often or from a B2B standpoint is it that one or is it another one?

Jon: No, that one right there. Really high success rate when it comes to B2B companies. One of the tactics I’d want to mention if you’re in the B2B space, is using a tool called Sniply to get more leads and get more demand generation by leveraging any PR or content that you’ve written. So, what Sniply does basically and Ladder actually does this ourselves and we transparently open up our own growth playbook for how we grow our own company on our blog and we’ve stood about this tactic before. But, essentially what it means is you know when you get a backlink in an article you know that has high authority like Hubspot or Salesforce or entrepreneur.com or whatever it might be. You know it’s great to have that content sitting there that you’ve written, but how do you actually leverage it to get more demand? Because creating content takes a ton of resource, getting PR is really difficult so how do you actually trace that back to demand generation you know if you’re a company? The way we do that is use Sniply. Which allows you to actually run advertising campaigns. It could be e-mail, it could be LinkedIn, it could be Adwords where all you do is promote that article, that got published on a high ranking, high authority site and you drive traffic to it. What that does is allow you to leverage the authority of these people that have written about you and you don’t come across salesy at all. Now the great thing about that is you’re more likely to get cheaper clicks and more engagement on that content and boost your brand recognition in the eyes of your prospects. What Sniply does is it actually follows those prospects to that piece of content and then provides them on that third party site, a call to action button to drive right back to your demand generation funnel.

Scott: That’s a really cool trick, I’m definitely going to check that out. I like that. Is there a campaign or project that you worked on that you thought was going to be a home run but it just didn’t work but you learned from it, so you know I’m sure that you have a ton of examples, is their one that just kind of haunt you and you always say, “Hey, remember that time?” or anything like that?

Is there a campaign or project that you worked on that you thought was going to be a home run but it just didn’t work?

Jon: Yes, and I think one interesting one was we worked for a company that was a marketplace. It was part B2B and part consumer in the night life space targeting restaurants and bars in that scene. At a high level all of their metrics looked pretty good pre-launch. We tested messaging. We tested demand generation. People were signing up on the on the business side and everything looked absolutely fantastic from everything we had done. You know that’s said it was before the company had actually launched their full product. What ended up happening was the product ended up going live and it launched. And when people actually engaged the software itself that was being used, the market responded really negatively. All the economics went out the window. And I think for me personally it was a case of you knows never get your hopes up to high until you actually try something for real you know in the wild when you’re actually measuring it. It’s very easy for business owners and marketers as well to get really excited by things sounding interesting and this case it wasn’t just like theory. We’d actually tested things out kind of in a pre-launched environment, but even then it goes to show that until you’re actually trying stuff in the wild with real consumers and you’re measuring everything to trust but verify you know as they say.

Scott: Yes, that is a secret lesson, I like that. I have a bunch of lessons like that. Yes, but I am kind of interested to move on to your twitter handle, @ThePokerCEO. You are a competitive poker player which I think is just fascinating. So when choosing these tactics and helping these companies, kind of map it back to playing poker, because I would assume that a poker player has some situational awareness and is using statistics on outcomes. Do marketers really get that many, do they get to play that many hands? Do they not understand kind of the statistics around their situational awareness or does being a poker player help you? How does that work?

Do you think being a professional poker player helps with your situational awareness?

Jon: Yes, it is a fantastic question. First I think my experience in poker has definitely helped me when it comes to taking a really like unique but effective approach to growing companies. So my background is playing online poker which I think is really important to note. You know, when you play online it is very similar to the way a digital marketer launches campaigns and uses tools like Google Analytics. So taking a step back, like what poker is all about and ultimately what Ladder believes marketing and growth should be about is accepting the fact that you have to make lots of choices with incomplete information. The information you have is typically, when it comes to marketing, just based off like water cooler recommendations. It is what you heard from somebody else. Its what you yourself personally tried. It is really like a small sample of data and the game is really all about how you can get complete information to make better choices off of it, right? Essentially do a better analysis and build better strategy. Poker is the exact same where you are playing, you are making lots of decisions on ROI, right, just like digital marketing. And, when it comes to online poker, software existed for quite some time but basically it is just like Google Analytics on steroids where it looks at and tracks all the data that is being collected and measured at the poker table over a long period of time and it takes all the data, and start serving it to you the player in an intelligent way. That then allows you to make better choices when it comes to how much do I invest in a decision? How much do I bet? What type of bet should I make in the first place? That directly corresponds to the challenges and opportunities of a digital marketer which is basically saying where should I focus resources, my bets? How much should I bet in the first place? Do I have a process in place where I can you know, learn a maximum amount of the choices I make without betting the farm on it, right? And, being able to manage a bank roll effectively. A bank roll essentially is basically just having your monthly media budget.

Scott: That is a great analogy. It is something that I think everybody can grab on to because there are so many unknowns and many other factors when you are playing poker and the same goes for marketing, especially in the B2B world. One of the things that are water cooler talk right now, is you know the social media platforms will change an algorithm and it affects your strategy and your media budget things like that. So I think the situational awareness is, that is a great analogy. I mean that is a whole podcast in itself I think. You should do that sometimes. So Jon, what else do you listen to or read to get inspiration or, do you have anything for continuous learning anything like that.

What else do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

Jon: Yes, my answer is going to be a little bit of cop out, but it is a true one. Now there are really two things that I have read and got inspiration from. The first, generally is the Ladder blog. We have an incredible content marketing team who preachers like radical transparency in everything we do. And then really Ladder is at a point where we work with lots of companies. We do extremely interesting stuff on a weekly basis. The blog that we have is a great way of transparently kind of bullet pointing what is happening, what are these trends we are seeing in the Ladder playbook, in our own database and experience, and what does that mean for companies. So at this point, I honestly, our own blog or something that I personally read really often and get an inspiration from that great team. Beyond that, I am actually really big into like twisty, like mystery books in the fiction space. I think the reason for that is when it comes to growth and the way that we always try to be really innovative with Ladder, it is always kind of thinking outside the box. What often happens with the company is when we work with them, they come to us with a growth problem. Let us say, their growth has really plateaued. What we never want to do is simply start like reciting the ABCs and formulating and clean cutter in our approach. And in order to be innovative, you have to just really have an open mindset that looks at all the information that is there right now. It is isn’t afraid to think outside the box and say well, “You know if you want to get from point A to point B you can’t keep doing the same thing. You know you can’t just keep trying new things that essentially are playing in the same arena that you currently are.” Sometimes you kind of have to, we architect the entire game in the first place and shift your whole strategy around in the outlook to have success. So, for me, reading kind of interesting you now a mystery, fiction books. You know I’ve always found this keeps me imaginative and helps me like always have that mindset when it comes to looking at a new challenge with the company.

Scott: Ha! That’s interesting. Yes, I’m kind of a non-fiction guy so I don’t read like that. But, I will check out the blogs that, thanks for plugging that. We’ll link back to it. Do people ask your advice on anything else other than growth marketing, growth hacking, and poker? You an expert in anything else?

Do people ask your advice on anything else other than growth marketing, growth hacking, and poker?

Jon: Yes, and once they have an expert at this. But at this point, we have grown Ladder bootstraps in less than 3 years to now, a 40 person company. We have worked with hundreds of businesses. We have manage remote teams. We recently bought a company located in Europe as well. And so it has been a really interesting journey to learn me on the operations side, the finance side, and like that. So, at this point, I am always like really enthused to talk to other business owners who are going on a similar journey and to share learnings.

Scott: Okay, that is outstanding. You said you bought a company can you say what that is?

Which company did you recently acquire?

Jon: Yes absolutely. So really, just this past month when we bought a 10 person growth hacking agency located in Western Poland. It was founded by an ex-Googler and the interesting thing with them is they were taking a very similar methodology to growing companies that Ladder has always have. They actually ended up finding us through our own content and we ended up just striking a really good friendship at first. We realized that we both saw the world of marketing the same way. Just recently we have officially joined forces and now have an additional crew of awesome people helping us to grow businesses.

Scott: That is super. And they found you on your blogs. That is cool.

Jon: Yes.

Scott: So Jon, thanks so much. Any closing thoughts as we shut down today?

Any closing thoughts?

Jon: Yes, the only closing thought I have is if you are a B2B marketer or business owner listening to this right now, and you want to find immediate value from the Ladder playbook, the first thing as always is how can you simplify. So you are going to see lots of options and if you want to lever those options without having to work with Ladder directly, number 1 rule I would say is always starting decision making with the goal that you have in mind. The single goal should be totally commercial. It should be as simple as saying we get 10 demo request every single month right now. We want to get to 20. Every single thing you do in terms of strategy, every tactic you evaluate whether to get more traffic or to get more traffic, always train yourself and your team to forcefully trace that back to, okay how is that going to get us from 10 requests to 20. Because, marketing is tough. There are lots of things you have to choose from. There are also choices you have to make. So always being mindful of the commercial goal is super helpful as a process point.

Scott: Well perfect. Hey, thanks Jon for your time today. I really appreciate you investing time in my learning and the audience. So I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/the-growth-marketing-playbook-jon-brody/feed/0Jon Brody (@ThePokerCEO) is the CEO at Ladder. Ladder is a growth marketing agency helping companies navigate and implement thousands of available tactics to grow revenues. In this episode, Jon talks about his company’s growth marketing playbook, successes, failures and how his professional poker player past helps him market more effectively. Sponsors This episode of [...]NoNo27:09Scott KingB2B, growth hacking, growth marketing, metricsHow Sales and Marketing Can Use AI – Chad Burmeisterhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-sales-and-marketing-can-use-ai-chad-burmeister/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-sales-and-marketing-can-use-ai-chad-burmeister/#respondThu, 22 Feb 2018 14:00:39 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3870In this episode I talk with my friend, Chad Burmeister ( @scalexai ). Chad is the is the co-founder and CEO of ScaleX. Chad and I talk about some of the complexities that still exist inside sales and marketing teams when trying to use personalization and role specialization. Chad provides some technology examples of how break traditional barriers and increase sales activities using artificial intelligence.

A typical business development rep averages 30-50 sales activities a day. Our reps average 500 – 1000 sales activities per day and produce 25-50 meetings per month.

A sales person will talk with 3-5% of the leads that marketing sends them.

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects. Visit ScaleX.ai/scott and receive three Playbooks for dormant Leads, downgraded opportunities and the popular outbound playbook. These playbooks have proven to increase lead conversion rates over 400%.

Contact Chad

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-sales-and-marketing-can-use-ai-chad-burmeister/feed/0In this episode I talk with my friend, Chad Burmeister ( @scalexai ). Chad is the is the co-founder and CEO of ScaleX. Chad and I talk about some of the complexities that still exist inside sales and marketing teams when trying to use personalization and role specialization. Chad provides some technology examples of how [...]NoNo32:00Scott KingAI, growth hacking, inside sales, sales, social sellingMarketing KPIs – Joe Chernovhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-kpis-joe-chernov/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-kpis-joe-chernov/#respondThu, 15 Feb 2018 14:00:31 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3843In this episode, I talk with Joe Chernov (@jchernov ). Joe is currently the CMO at InsightSquared. He previously worked at HubSpot and Eloqua so he knows a lot about marketing technology. Joe and I talk about measuring marketing KPIs, how to use social media effectively and some of his successful and not so successful campaigns.

Contact Joe

Sponsors

This episode of The Scott King Show is sponsored by ScaleX.ai. ScaleX is a sales acceleration platform using powerful artificial intelligence. If your sales reps are not each booking 25-50 appointments a month, then they need AI-based personalization. ScaleX works with all modern marketing automation and social media platforms to get more meetings and multiply hours spent talking with prospects. Visit ScaleX.ai/scott and receive three Playbooks for dormant Leads, downgraded opportunities and the popular outbound playbook. These playbooks have proven to increase lead conversion rates over 400%.

Podcast Transcription

Scott: Well hey, Joe welcome to the show, thanks a lot for joining me.

Joe: Thanks for having me, Scott.

Scott: Today we’ve got Joe Chernov, CMO over at InsightSquared. You’ve may have seen him in the CMO circles at Eloqua and Hubstop and writing all over. Content marketing institute awarded you content marketer of the year. How’d you get that Joe? That seems pretty cool.

How did you win content marketer of the year?

Joe: Yes, so what happened was, I was the first one to get the award and I think it came down to he or she who could prove the value of content marketing would get the inaugural award because the industry association itself had an interest in proving that content marketing really worked. I just so happened to have some data to support my campaign, if you will. I suspect that made the difference, it wasn’t about the quality of my output it was about the impact of the output.

Scott: It almost sounds like a job, somebody had to figure out how to measure everything and then you come along and they paid you with the first award.

Joe: I had an unfair advantage. I worked for Eloqua at the time and we were a really data-driven marketing organization and I had a strong team that reported to me and that was adjacent to me, so I had a little bit of a leg up just given where I worked and the nature of that organization.

Scott: Yes, you would have an unfair advantage, Eloqua is a big system and you’ve been at Hubspot now InsightSquared. It seems like you are stuck in the martech vendor space and all of those different vendors solve different problems. I’m interested in what you consider to be the biggest challenge for CMOs today. Do you think that it’s in the martech space just because that’s where you live or do you think it’s something else?

What do you think the biggest challenges are for CMOs?

Joe: I can really only speak to my corner of the world and you right I’m stuck in my corner of the world in the mar-tech side. I think it’s funny term stuck, I laughed a bit when you said it.

Scott: I mean, some people may think that you’re crazy because that’s hard stuff.

Joe: I think it’s hard because the expectations are really high given that we tend to be at the front edge of change given that we represent the technology that will later cascade into the market more broadly. I don’t mean that as a boast but more so a statement of fact. What is most difficult for me and my cohorts of marketing leaders is that the expectation has spread from initially being expected to be responsible for building a funnel to now being responsible for throughput in that funnel, so we’re pulled more deeply into the sales process itself, I spend as much if not more of my time talking about sales follow up as I do creating demand itself. Now, there are rumblings that will be pulled all the way through the funnel and out the other side into the customer lifecycle. The expectations are that we will help retain, grow, renew, cross-sell, up-sell our existing customers to grow the business that way. The function itself, the CMO function is no longer limited to, quote on quote, just marketing but marketing plus sales plus customer success and that becomes a really big job.

Scott: It’s impossible, well not impossible, but very difficult for one person to do it. You’ve got to build a team around you to do all those different functions especially all the way through the backend customer renewals and everything. Everything is SAS based now so you have to renew customers all of the time. What do you think all of the executive teams, the CEOs and the boards, what do you think that they need to do to address the expectations on one person and how should they help him? How are you being helped maybe?

What questions are you asking to the CEO and the board?

Joe: I’m prone to say, show me how I’m measured and I’ll show you how I behave. I think it all begins with the right KPIs and the right metrics. If my metrics are all pinned to the top of the funnel, if I am responsible for lead generations and I keep my job, I get a promotion, I get raises, I get my bonus all based on the number of leads. and then you go and tell me that you’d also like me to focus on customer renewals. Well, if my KPIs don’t reflect that request then where am I going to spend my time? Show me how I’m measured and I’ll show you how I behave. I would urge leadership executive teams, CEOs, boards, to spend a disproportionate amount of time putting in place metrics, shared metrics, common metrics across sales, marketing and customer success that force, not just alignment but sort of functional integration. That’s the way to solve this. It’s not really through technology. It’s through putting goals in place that motivate the right behavior. At the end of the day the way I look at it is this. It’s going to work a little like this. I took a ski lesson one day and the coach, he told me a really great skier could lose a ski. One of the two skis could fall off during the run, and they could get to the bottom pull up to the lift and then realize that they are missing a ski. They are in such good balance that they don’t even realize a ski disappeared. So for me, the gold standard for sales, marketing, customer success should be if one of those executives dropped off the face of the earth the next day, could one of the other two fill his or her role and you never even notice that person was gone. That is an extreme way to look at it. But, metaphorically I think a lot about that advise that coach gave.

Scott: Yes, that’s interesting because a lot of the martech pundits talk about the machine. The marketing machine. They want the machine to work so that if one cog or one piece does go down that the machine doesn’t break the supply-chain of sales doesn’t break. So that is an interesting analogy, I’ve been skiing before and I’m pretty sure that I’d need both to get all the way down. I’ve accidentally skied on one when one fell off but I quickly realized, hey, I need two.

Joe: Yes, I’m in the same boat with you, that’s why I said I think it’s an aspiration more than a reality.

What is your favorite KPI metric and why is it you’re favorite?

Joe: It’s revenue growth. It’s funny I talked to my team as we started going into plan for 2018 my team and I were talking about the metrics that are more equal that others. The metrics that kind of bubble up to the top of our priority list. We went around the room and talked about if you have to pick one which one do you use to sort of grade yourself. I was the only one who said revenue of the business. In a way I kind of appreciate that everybody one the team is looking for the number that they can most directly impact themselves. That’s probably a healthy outlook but you also need somebody on the team that looks at it as, if we hit all of our numbers but the business doesn’t grow did we really do the right thing for the business? The reciprocal is if we missed our numbers but the business is growing, everybody is going to forget that we missed our numbers. Nobody is going to beat us up over that. It all comes out into the wash based on how the business is performing.

Scott: Yes, because revenue growth is really what pays the bills right. You can’t go to the grocery store and buy your groceries with such and such conversion rate please give me all of my groceries. It takes dollars.

Joe: Exactly.

Scott: Yes so revenue is my favorite because that solves all problems.

Joe: I’ve been in board meeting where we missed the number but marketing metrics looked good. I always feel a little dirty boasting about marketing’s metrics. Ultimately all that matters is that they contribute to the business’s success. So, it feels a little icky to say you smashed your number but the company didn’t smash it’s.

Scott: Yes, supply chain problems. I want to shift over to your earlier days really talking about content. You’ve created content for a long time, content marketing institute awarded you, Content Marketer of the year because you were ahead of the game. You had all of these metrics and you helped them. Do you have a favorite piece of content, like one that was way more successful than the rest? Maybe one you did yourself or do you have a favorite piece?

Do you have a favorite piece of content?

Joe: I do, by a country mile. It had nothing to do with business. One day, I read this article about shark finning. The study estimated that 100 million sharks are killed every year just for their fins, for soup. Everything else just dropped to the bottom of the ocean, the whole animal. I read it and then 5 minutes later I said, wait did I get that number right 100 million? 100 million? Yes, it was 100 million so I created with a buddy of mine, a designer who I had worked with in the past professionally. He had done most of the infographics and design work for Eloqua. I called him up and said, “Look man, how can we visualize how big 100 million is?” I said, “What if we faked an infinite scroll and we create an infographic that shows icons of a shark but we got 100 million of them of there?” And he’s like, “There is no CMS in the world that could support that.” So I said “Okay, divide 100 million by 12 and we’ll do how many are killed a month.” He said, “There’s no CMS that can support that.” So I said, “All right divide it by week.” On and on we went until we got to how many sharks are finned an hour and even that is like an infinite scroll. Why I love this piece is, it had an incredible amount of PR around it. I had people calling me saying, Kevin Smith, the film maker was talking about it on his SModcast. But the part that I really liked is that the fining tends to be a problem primarily in Asia. At least most acutely in Asia and there was a press conference. It was about environment sustainability, a press conference in China. The organization printed out the entire info graphic and rolled it out as if it were a red carpet and everybody that attended the press conference had to walk across it and physically experience the scope of this slaughter. I was just overwhelmed by that in that sense of contribution.

Scott: Wow, that’s pretty cool. did you just do this out of your own pocket? Like “Hey, sharks are cool I want to buy an infographic” or did the designer do it pro bono? How did that work?

Joe: It was a partnership so I didn’t pay. I would have but I didn’t have to. Robin the designer, Robin Richards he was able to develop quite a name for himself on the back of this. We were just a team. We both cared about it. It was something that startled us, the scope of that. He felt similarly to the way I did and we just decided to strike up a collaboration.

Scott: Well that’s outstanding. That’s a good use of data visualization and social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter. Everyone talks about we should use those but how effective are they? How are sales and marketing teams using social platforms like LinkedIn well? You just provided a really good example of how I could put out content and then share it and it even showed up as a red carpet.

How are marketers using social platforms well and how could they be using them better?

Joe: Yes, in some ways there’s almost an embarrassment of riches when it comes to social media’s ability to facilitate the connection between one person and another. There’s an embarrassment of riches. That is to say, it is just really easy to find people and to interrupt them. The way I think it is being employed poorly is people who use LinkedIn messaging to side step email. They send you a connection request. You accept the connection request because they have a common industry or common school, there’s something that tells you it is not spam. Then, low and behold 30 seconds later you get a sales pitch. That is how they are doing it poorly. I’ll talk about the challenge with how it’s being done well. How it’s being done well is, as we publish more and more of our thoughts, like people know that I care about shark finning or environmental issues, people know what my political leadings are, people know that I like to ski, all of this stuff is kind of fair game it’s out there. When people ignore, when people don’t stop to kind of study someone and develop almost of a scouting report on that person and then tailor their pitch to what that individual does, likes, his interested in, is concerned about and ignores that massive amount of unstructured information when they pitch and they just race to the close, that’s what flawed. The challenge is it’s very difficult to scale, where it’s effective is when folks stop, look and then respond. I can give you a really good example, I was pitched by a marketing automation company, I’ve worked at two of them Eloqua and HubSpot and I’ll use a third, Marketo. Somebody from a fourth wrote me. It was a BDR pitch, inside sales person, entry level rep pitch and said, “I know you’ve worked at two of our competitors. You probably know who we are. But, there is an element of our business you might not know about. That is, we started with content in mind and I know much of what your focused on is content marketing. I’m okay if you don’t want to continue the conversation, I just really wanted you to know what our difference is.” It was such an unbelievably good pitch that I responded and I said, “I’m not in the position to buy, we just signed on with Marketo.” But, this is as perfect of a pitch as I’ve received. It’s short. It’s relevant. It’s focused on your value and I copied it to his entire executive team. He wrote me after to say, “I’d rather have my executive team see that response than the sale at this point in my career.” To me, I want more people should do that. That guy really nailed it and if I was in the market for a marketing automation product I would have given this company a shot.

Scott: Yes, that brings up a good point; One, on the bad example. I got one of those this morning. A connection request then immediately, “Hey I sell this.” I’m like “Dude, your doing it all wrong.” I have had because I put my self out there quite a bit. I got a pitch one time and it was articulating my history down to when I coached my daughter’s soccer team at the YMCA. My response was much the same, “Hey, thanks a lot for actually being interested.” What happens is the conversion rate on those are really high but the quantity is really low. It’s like “Hey, I need a million leads this month or 100 million, if your sharks”, where are all of my leads? People get lost in the quantity versus the actual conversion rate of an actual conversation. If you can create a conversation, I talk a lot of the podcast about B2B marketers need to humanize themselves and humanize their brands more like B2C. We are all people and social media makes it easier. I think it goes back to your KPIs, “Hey, maybe we need to look at the number of conversations we have versus the number of leads we’re getting.” The number of leads is irrelevant if nobody ever talks to each other.

Do marketers need to look at the number of conversations we have versus the number of leads we’re producing?

Joe: But, the flip side of that is if you have to get 100 sales to make your number and you can have 50 conversations even if every one of those goes on to buy, you’re going to miss your number by half. That’s why I said there’s a scalability problem with being too precious in personalization. You have to strike this balance. We have ethos internally where we say first is best. Meaning the first discovery about something that interest somebody or someway that you can make your pitch more relevant, that’s good enough. Stop there and then craft your pitch around that. That’s our way to try to create some degree of personalization at some level of scale.

Scott: Yes, total agree. It’s hard to read everybody’s LinkedIn and write a custom pitch. It’s just really slow, effective but slow you’re right. Outside of the shark infographic example, what’s one of your most successful campaigns? Do you have something else maybe for work that worked out? What made it effective and how did you measure the success of it? Do you have an example that is at the top of your mind?

What’s one of your most successful campaigns?

Joe: Yes, I do. I’m going to go in a different direction. We run direct mail programs. Really premium direct mail programs. Not sending people coffee mugs with your logo on it but like luggage tags with their initials on them and we do this for open opportunities. So this is designed to generate revenue for the business. That is, the marketing has already sort of done its job. We’ve sourced the lead. We’ve passed it over to sales. We’ve warmed up through nurturing and now there are in the sale cycle. In most companies marketing is done at that point and they go back to the top of the funnel to try to procure the next one. What we try to do is market all the way through the funnel. We partner with sales and we will run some direct mail programs at open opportunities. There are open opportunities that meet different criteria that will make them eligible for different levels of direct mail. We’ve looked at our close rate when we run those programs versus our standard optic close rate when marketing sort of abandon ship and goes back to trying to procure the next lead and the close rate is about 40% higher, when we stay involved throughout the entire sales process. We know that we are having an impact . Only one person sees the marketing output. That is the recipient. By definition can’t go viral because it’s one to one marketing. The impact on the business is significant so that’s what excites me about those programs.

Scott: Yes, that’s pretty cool. I like the middle of the funnel sales process that always works because sales people are sometimes looking for items to push a prospect from one point to another. In the direct mail piece are you sending anything specifically? Or does it vary?

Are you sending anything specifically in your direct mail campaigns?

Joe: It varies. We’ve done a variety of programs. We sell to sales teams. Sales teams are the users of our product and so we sell to a lot of tech companies. Their sales floors look a lot like our sales floors. A lot of young guys with baseball caps on backwards and we’ve branded energy drinks, sort of Red Bull like energy drink. We’ve branded them with InsightSquared logos and some data visualization looking graphics. At the very top of the funnel if someone looks like a really good fit for us, we send them a case of those. What I like about that program is they get shared, there’s 24 sugary beverages being circulated on the sales floor, now everybody in that sales team knows who we are that’s why I like that program. But I like more of a spoke more one to one programs. We know if you used to use InsightSquared but have gone on to either a new company that doesn’t or if you were in our sales cycle once and you didn’t buy but you re-entered our sales process a second time, you’re three times more likely to purchase. For those cohorts we do our come running back program, which I think is kind of fun. We send them a postcard saying “We missed you. Come running back to InsightSquared” and the postcard has a URL where they add their shoe size. It’s kind of weird its all like running themes down the postcard and we send them a pair of Nike sneakers branded with InsightSquared colors. That is sort of a fun way to give the sales team an excuse to get engaged with this contact. They always take the call after getting that campaign. I look at our job as, similar to the agent in Hollywood. It’s not the agent’s job to get their client the part. It’s the agent’s job to get the client the audition and in my world the audition is somebody taking a phone call. My job is to get as many of those phone calls to happen as possible.

Scott: Yes. That’s a good analogy, I like the agent analogy that’s pretty cool. That is successful but you probably have some projects that you spend either a lot of money or time or resources on that didn’t work out.

What have you learned about things that didn’t work out?

Joe: Most things don’t. It’s noisy out there, right? It’s more and more difficult every day to get your signal heard amongst the noise. I run programs that I thought for sure were going to be a home run. For a while I was marketing to developers. It was kind of fun because they hadn’t seen the flavor of marketing that had been so delicious for marketing to marketers. That is some of the creative stuff, the info graphics, the videos. It just hadn’t been applied to that persona and I create this deck with a designer that was all themed around Tarot cards and the design was beautiful, he did such an incredible job. Nobody, I mean nobody consumed it. With marketers, it would have gone over like gangbusters. Developers are just to weird and it was just miscalibrated. So my lesson there was that you really do have to understand, that the content isn’t good or bad in absolute. It’s good or bad relative to who it is designed for. Not everybody would like Chopin. Classical music fans would like Chopin. A 20-year-old would like Taylor Swift. They’re not good or bad in absolute. They’re good or bad relative to their audience and I was looking at content in absolute in that regard. Another that I wouldn’t say it was a failure, I just have no idea if it was successful or not was last year we ran an out of home campaign. We sell a lot to venture-backed tech companies and we surrounded those companies with bus stop ads, outdoor ads throughout San Francisco. They were fun ads. They’re build like a bunch of sales reports and they would ask a provocative question like can you figure out what’s going on in this company? We knew we’re going to measure it by anecdote. We knew it was going to come down to were prospects acknowledging that they had seen this? We seeing Twitter activity. Were we seeing geographical search volume increase? In the end, we got a few anecdotes. I have no idea if I paid myself back for that. But, I do know the one lesson here is, you will never get a home run if you don’t take that bats and you’re going to miss as much as you hit. But look, the Hall Of Fame in baseball is filled with people who missed 70% of the time. You’ve got to accept that there’s going to be some trial and error here.

Scott: Yes that’s always the tough part. The at bats are always a good example because like you said the Hall Of Fame guys, the good ones get in on a 300 average. 700 is misses in and . I think most marketers get that. Especially if you are marketing to marketers. You kind of live in a different world because people like different stuff. But developers they just want free software. They say, “I have a problem right now can you help me solve my problem right now?” Let me go search for it, let me see what I can find. It may not be Tarot cards something like that. You’ve done this for a while and you’ve been marketing to sales and marketing folks for a long time.

Who or what do you listen to or read to stay on top of your game or to be inspired?

Joe: To stay on top of my game I try to curate a list. The people I follow on Twitter tend to be a pretty reliable signal for what matters. But if I had to pick a person, I think Jon Miller at Engagio consistently puts out the best stuff. I think he is extraordinarily bright and he gets where this industry is going. I think Jon is extraordinary. A couple colleges of mine at Eloqua Steve Woods and Paul Teshima, they run a startup called Nudge. They’ve written a number of blog post lately that I think are spectacular. They have one about how hustle is overrated and how volume is overrated very similar to our conversation. They’ve discovered the only way to advance the business is to try to help somebody to add value in every single conversation you have with them even if it’s a conversation that has nothing to do with what you sell. They’re kind of re-thinking their go to market around that ethos. I think those guys are putting out really interesting stuff right now and I know them both well and they’re extraordinary guys. I think those folks, the three of them are doing really well. I think the CMO at Engagio, a woman name Heidi Bullock. She spent a lot of time at Marketo. I think she is very strong. I think the best marketer in tech full stop is, Maria Pergalino who is now at Anaplan. She was recently at Aptus. Her speeches are incredibly insightful because they are really tactical. It’s interesting she is one of the most prominent marketers in tech, she’s SVP’s CMO and yet she gives these really hands-on tactical presentations. It’s refreshing seeing someone at that altitude being able to talk about what people and their team do on a daily basis. She doesn’t get stuck rarefied air. So I think Maria is also a real inspiration.

Scott: Alright cool. Definitely I’ll take a look and search around for those blog post and link back to them, does sound interesting. What do people ask you Joe for advice on? Outside or martech and sales and marketing are you an expert at anything else?

What do people ask you about?

Joe: I don’t know if I’m an expert at anything let alone anything else. The email I always respond to is the LinkedIn message, I always respond to it. It is one about starting a career, changing a career, people that are trying to think about how they might want to adapt what they are doing, where they feel like maybe painted into a corner a bit career-wise. I enjoy those questions and I respond to those questions, I try to respond to those questions in as sincere a fashion as I can. I really try not to mail it in those responses because I’m incredible flattered that somebody would reach out to me on that. When it comes to, even with my team, my litmus is, I tend to manage people in Tech-Marketing. They are young and I tend to manage quote on quote millennials and what I try to optimize for is, when they go home at thanksgiving or if they drop off their laundry and their parents house, what do they tell their parents about their job? What do they tell their parents about their boss? What do they tell their parents about the projects that they are working on? I try to optimize for a response that the mom or dad says to them, “Wow you’re in a really good place, I wish I had found myself in that place at that stage in my career” and if I’m getting there, if they are having that conversation then I’m doing my job.

Scott: That sounds pretty cool. Pretty tough to measure because you’re not there at Thanksgiving with everybody else but good idea.

Joe: In marketing they are things that we measure that we can prove to be right. It’s a KPI. But, there are also things we need to do that we just know to be right whether or not we can prove them. We as an industry have shifted so far to prove to be right that we sometimes lose sight of the things that we simply know to be right.

If you didn’t have any responsibilities at home or work next week Joe what would you do?

Joe: I would try to get incrementally closer to try to lose one ski and find my way to the bottom of the trail without killing myself.

Scott: That sounds good. We should be getting more snow than ice these days so so hopefully you can you can find a downhill to go mono-skiing I guess. But a monoski is an entirely different thing. Have you seen one of these?

How do you prefer people contact you?

Joe: If it is something that is public you can ask on Twitter. That will get the fastest response. If it’s something private they could connect with me on LinkedIn and ask the question in the connection request and then I’ll accept it responded if I can.

Any closing thoughts on what we talked about today?

Joe: I am glad that we got to touch on the notion that not everything in marketing can be measured and there are certain things you need to do marketing simply because you know them to be right. I enjoyed talking to you about marketing KPIs and how ultimately in the end, if you want to induce the right behavior it all begins with attaching the right metrics from the very start. Show me how measured and I’ll show you how to behave. I think it’s important that marketers keep their content skills sharp by producing content that not only makes sense for them professionally but also inspire them personally and we talked a little bit about a passion project of mine.

Scott: Brilliant. Thanks Joe so much for talking with me today. I really appreciate your time. I learned a lot and hopefully the audience learned a lot. I just want to thank you for your time.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-kpis-joe-chernov/feed/0In this episode, I talk with Joe Chernov (@jchernov ). Joe is currently the CMO at InsightSquared. He previously worked at HubSpot and Eloqua so he knows a lot about marketing technology. Joe and I talk about measuring marketing KPIs, how to use social media effectively and some of his successful and not so successful campaigns. [...]NoNo40:46Scott Kingeloqua, hubspot, hustle, infographic, marketo, Martech, Nudge, scalex.aiWhen to Protect Your Intellectual Property – Vincent LoTempiohttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/when-to-protect-your-intellectual-property-vincent-lotempio/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/when-to-protect-your-intellectual-property-vincent-lotempio/#respondThu, 08 Feb 2018 14:00:13 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3829Vincent LoTempio ( @LoTempio ) is a Registered Patent Attorney. His practice focuses on intellectual property matters including patent, trademark, copyright prosecution and infringement litigation. Prior to his current practice, Vin practiced intellectual property law as a sole practitioner, was a Felony Trial Attorney with the Erie County District Attorney s office and co-author of Patent Fundamentals for Scientists and Engineers

In this episode, Vincent talks to me about the difference between a patent, trademark and a copyright. He explains the process and costs associated with each and when inventors and marketers should seek protection. Vincent then talks to me about what inspires him and how he overcame losing his right hand in an accident when he was 12 years old.

5 Levels of Trademark Distinctiveness

Generic

Descriptive

Suggestive

Arbitrary

Fanciful

Questions During Podcast

What is the difference between patent and trademark and copyright?

What is the America Invents Act?

When do marketers and entrepreneurs need seek legal protection?

How are marketers and entrepreneurs being taken advantage of?

How do you see digital marketing or digital experiences evolving?

What is your most proud accomplishment?

Describe a time when a project you were overseeing did not go well?

What did you learn from that and how do you avoid that from happening again?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

What do people ask your advice on other than law?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week, what would you do with your time?

This episode is all about writing and creating content using your customer s own language. My next guest, Jeffrey Shaw (@JeffreyShaw1 ), talks to me about how to help businesses stand out, attract their ideal customers, and create brand loyalty that supersedes price. His latest book, LINGO, helps business owners and entrepreneurs understand their ideal customer on a deeper level to increase engagement and profits.

Contact Jeffrey

Podcast Transcription

Scott: Who is this book for? Is it for the solo-preneur or is it for the entrepreneur or is it for marketers, sales people? Who is it for?

Jeffrey: I tend to refer to it as being for the uncommon entrepreneur. Meaning those of us that are out there doing something out of the ordinary. What I often say that one connective tissue and all the different industries that I coach people from is that we’re likely to be in an industry for which there’s no formal business training. So, there’s a lot of skills so we can learn a lot skill sets or technology but no one ever teaches that tries to make money on this thing. So this book is sort of geared towards that. Which I also can say it’s really for people that are in relational and not transactional businesses. Because to speak someone’s Lingo, to speak their secret language is that relational building strategy as opposed to transactional business and that would fall under–Yeah, for me I primarily think entrepreneurs. My podcast is the same way like creative warriors. We really gear to it being a show for people, you know, probably five or fewer people in the company, many of them solo entrepreneurs. The interesting thing is, which I guess have been a little surprise for me is that I’m followed a lot by marketers and that’s been interesting to me because it’s a little intimidating. I don’t consider myself a trained or professional marketer. I’m just an incredibly well experienced marketer. I’ve been in business for so long and I was out there as a photographer selling one of the most challenging things you can sell. I think I have a level of expertise as a marketer but I never set out to attract marketers because I was intimidated by their education and experience and having a right to claim themselves to be a marketer. Oddly enough, they get that what I have to say is interesting. So I have a huge following amongst marketers.

Scott: Why would a marketer be intimidating, right? I’m a marketing guy but like you, not by training but by practice, right? I was a sales guy and this like they said, hey, you’re really good at opening conversations and writing and doing all the stuff that we think a marketing person should do. Would you mind doing that? So I said, okay, sure. So why do you think marketers are intimidating?

Jeffrey: Not so much that they for who they are as a person. I’m an entrepreneur through and through. I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life and, you know, I mean, my whole life like from being a young teenager fourteen year old selling eggs door to door and never really gotten a paycheck and I also didn’t go to college. It wasn’t really an option in my childhood. So I get intimidated by the idea that people are smarter, more educated, or have a degree that I don’t have and I sometimes forget. You have this wealth of experience of having been an entrepreneur and what makes my work unique is because I was that lower middle class kid ending up serving the wealthiest people in the country. That took a unique marketing mindset and that’s what Lingo is all about. So when I say, yes, that’s not who they are as.. as nice kind people or their profession, it’s, oh my gosh, they’re formally trained and I’m not. Do I have a right? But I said I just have to remind myself that, yeah, I absolutely have a right to because my journey has been unique and that’s how I think I can help people.

Scott: It s interesting that you said that because marketers are trained yet maybe they’re trained in like the secret language in the Lingo and that is what your book is about. It s actually how to get into an area or a circle that you maybe don’t belong yet but you’re trying to drag yourself in and that’s what Lingo is.

Jeffrey: I actually think that often what we’re trained in, sometimes keeps us on the surface of things and I actually my hope is that Lingo is a deeper version of what marketers may have thought about doing up to this point. You know, it maybe, not all, but some marketers and as a profession and even for entrepreneurs they may have been really concentrating on the buyer personas, the avatars, the demographics and the stats and that’s actually my dream is–is that we realize that, I believe, consumers of the future are going to demand more in-depth understanding of who they are in order to gain–for us to gain their business that I think sometimes when we’re highly trained in something you take that what I’m saying.. I’m a trained photographer but being good at managing the camera and being trained in the technique of photography is not why I have had a super successful business. It was because of the humanity and the connection I created. So, I think sometimes formal training in something actually can become a little bit of a barrier. So that’s what my hope here is that with this actually conversation Lingo opens up an opportunity for marketers to even think in more depth.

Scott: Yeah. I totally agree. I’m thinking when you talked about the technical aspects of photography, back in the old days when you had dials and knobs, aperture and speed and light and like all of these and focus and depth and all those things that photography have had to offer for an experienced professional. A marketing person understands all these marketing automation tools as well but there’s all types of tools. If you’re not telling the right story and if you’re not dragging your user in your demographic, you’re missing half of the picture. I think you kind of stumbled into that with photography and then figured out how to sell a luxurious product and I think you actually did bridge the gap.

Jeffrey: Well, you’re raising a great point. It’s like you go to any art school. You go to a photography and you learn about composition but it’s often the most compelling thing is you create or when you break the rules of composition. Right? So, any time we re formally trained in something, we’d get the structure we need and as a marketer you may gain and great knowledge about layout and impact and how to. But it’s actually when you think outside of that box, when you break that mold and you actually create your most compelling art. We see the same brands every day. It’s the brands that we know. Geico I think is an interesting example. It s almost if you follow it they almost break all the rules. It’s crazy how many different styles of ads they are running. It used to be the caveman. Then it was the little lizard. Then like the Loch Ness monster coming out of a pond of a golf course. The squealing pig. There’s almost no unification to their branding, but then why does it work?

Scott: That’s interesting. I haven’t thought of Geico as an example but it does work, right? Or, maybe you’re crossing over different demographics, maybe whatever you’re watching or reading, maybe they have missed targeted you. Or, you see more because I don’t think I’ve seen the Loch Ness monster thing. I forgot about the caveman. I remember the gecko.

Jeffrey: The caveman was a long time ago but that was one of the original concepts. They break all the rules. Well, not all the rules, but they certainly break some rules of marketing as far as continuity and consistency and brand identity. There s a campaign going now. I’m trying to think of what it is but, you know, the first few times I saw the ad I didn’t realize it was even Geico. So they’re breaking a lot of commonly held ideas around marketing and yet it’s working because they’re breaking the rules in a way and yet there is. I’ve looked at them enough to figure what’s going on here. There is a common denominator and it is that you can get cheaper insurance in fifteen minutes. You can save fifteen percent in fifteen minutes. So there is In every case, there is an easy component that ultimately comes forward in the commercial. But from an identification perspective, they’re all over the place and yet it works.

Scott: Maybe they are more advanced? Maybe formally marketed or formally trained marketers like we were talking about earlier are beyond the four Ps. The promotion and the price and the product and all that and these guys have evolved with the way we consume media, right? So, ever since we got Facebook and the smartphone, marketers do know more about us. They know our location, you know, for one because we’re on the phone and we’re emitting that information and you can grab that and maybe Geico maybe they’re just more in tune with the technology and plus they buy a lot of media, right? They spend like a billion dollars on ads. They’re everywhere.

Jeffrey: And yet, I think this is what separates us in our industries. There are a lot of insurance companies out there selling ads, buying ads and selling to us, State Farm. This is progressive. I refer to it in Lingo as, owning your space. Geico has a space that they own and which we expect them to present their products and services under. State Farm has a very different space, right? State Farm space is much more traditional insurance. We re over there when you need us, very stable. That’s their insurance space. So there’s a lot of progressive–which I don’t think works as well–that does trying the whole Flo, you know, Flo the character and they’re trying a humor, trying to get to you through humor but it’s not. I don’t know. I just don’t find it as they’re almost too close to Geico, right? Geico is all humor–Progressive is just kind of playing to the left of it and so therefore it’s not strong enough. But if you put Geico and State Farm, side by side, they are competitors. But, look how worlds apart they are in their style and they re attracting. Which is the whole point of Lingo, they’re attracting, very different customers, people with different values, different mindsets, different attitudes.

Scott: I think it was last night I was sitting around the dinner table and talking to the kids about who knows what and progressive came up. I said, oh, yeah, we’re a Progressive customer and the look of disappointment on my fourteen year old daughter’s face was like. I didn’t really think of it then, but now, talking to you, and talking about the different insurance companies that there was this look of disappointment. Maybe here expectation was that we should be a customer of something else because she identifies with it better.

Jeffrey: Yeah, but that can’t you be, you know, why aren’t you a customer of something cooler, right? That’s probably what, you know, a fourteen year old’s thinking about and the perfect example of this I think is it’s just look at a couple like Sears. Can anybody say what Sears stands for anymore? I don t think so.

Scott: To me it stands for my grandparents.

Jeffrey: Exactly. It’s just so you just don’t need to say about it. I mean, the closest is they kind of stand for appliances, right? There’s still a pretty good resource for appliances but that’s the problem. J.C. Penney, too. The companies that we see in our world that were at one-time thriving and really stagnant now. You can kind of look at them and say the problem is they don’t own a space. No one can clearly identify what Sears represents. They were vanilla in a world that needs pistachio and they were just like laying there flat and stand for nothing. I mean, I guess that’s where you run in and buy Hanes underwear. I don’t know what you do at Sears. I don’t know that a lot of people do which why you’re not compelled and drawn to go in there.

Scott: Yeah, there’s not even Sears near me anymore because they all closed. I do remember the last time I went into a Sears. It was about six or seven years ago maybe and we were shopping for something like an appliance. Some big, hard, good like that. We walked in. It just felt weird and we just left. My wife and I we just left because it felt weird and I think we went to some specialty store. You go into the specialty store because we knew we were shopping for and they understood maybe our Lingo, right? So, so we kind of stepped into a situation that made us more comfortable. The sales person was more knowledgeable and we bought something there, right? Maybe they don’t really know where their space is anymore because they got so diluted and you saw Amazon and Wal-Mart kind of take over and those guys are just dead. You know, same with J.C. Penney. I can’t tell you even why you go there. I saw J.C. Penney ads over the holidays and I was surprised that they were even advertising. Who goes in there?

Jeffrey: Look what happened a few years ago when they decided the CEO had the bright idea to no longer have sales. They were just going to make their pricing, everyday pricing with no more sales. Well, that killed them. Because they took away, they talked about not understanding the Lingo, their ideal customer. Gap did this, by the way, when I talk about the same Lingo a lot of people realize that several years ago, I think it was 2010. The Gap tried changing the logo.

They just wanted to change the look of the logo. It’s still going to be called The Gap and it was the same color scheme. This is for rearranging elements and it lasted for a week because when they put it out there their social media following went nuts. Right, because they didn’t want the change. So, these brands occasionally, usually brands that had been around for a while they lose their identity and they lose — in JCPenney when they abolished the sales, they made a disconnect to the language of their ideal customer who likes the thrill of getting something on sale. But they know that those other times that might be more expensive but if you take away that game that right they took away the game of occasion of the only reason why you’d want to go there and they’ve never really recovered from it. So, you talk about Sears, like to me, I love that you said you felt weird going into Sears. There’s no one talking like you walk into a Sears and I do not mean just in its literal sense although there was kind of a required hum to the Sears like they really literally almost as isn’t anybody talking but there’s nothing about that store that’s stands out that you feel like there’s any conversation going on. The reason you were drawn into that specialty store is, likely not only because they knew your secret language but that you’ve walked in there because you’ve recognized them as speaking your language which is what drew you in on the first place and this is all part of the 5-steps, the 5-strategy steps that I explained in building this language strategy. The second step is familiarity, right? We’re drawn to what’s familiar to us because hey, it’s already speaking your language. So I would say you’re probably drawn into that store in the first place and then found what you needed because, “Hey, here’s a place speaking my language.”

Scott: So yes, you talk about the secret language in Lingo in the five steps and that was the second one. What do you describe in Lingo that are the other steps?

Jeffrey: Sure. So to backtrack to the first step is to understand the perspective of your ideal customer. So you could see this even a step prior to that which is knowing who your ideal customer is, which, Scott, honestly was a surprised to me. I actually wrote the entire book and started doing podcast interviews and which repeatedly getting asked by people saying, “Well, how do we know who our ideal customer is?”

Honestly, Scott, I thought people knew that. I’m like, “But you’re already in business how do you not know who your ideal customers and you’re already in business or on podcast? I felt I was speaking to entrepreneurial podcast who the audience–they are entrepreneurs. It’s like, “Why is the host asking me that, do we even know?” We actually went back and wrote a chapter on defining your ideal customer before I could lay out the 5-step strategy, the first step is perspective. You cannot build a business and this is the downfall — I don’t know if I say downfall — but this is the challenge I think most businesses set for themselves right at the beginning. Businesses are built backwards. Particularly entrepreneurial ventures because what happens is people have a great idea that they want to build a business. They build a business and then they spend who knows how many years running around trying to fit people into that business, what we call customers.

They’re literally trying to market a pole in like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, where the right way to be, if you want to make your life easier then decide who you are meant to serve, what your skill set, to find your ideal customer, where does your skill set best serve? What are your innate qualities? What do you have to bring to the table? So then you know who your ideal — that’s the title of the chapter on defining your ideal customer. By the way is called ‘Who would love that?” Because that’s the bottom line. It’s like, “All right, this is who I am. This is what I’m good at. This what I have to offer, who would love that? That’s who your ideal customers. Once you know that then, “Okay what’s their perspective? How do they look at the world? What are their values? Are they innately pessimistic or they innately optimistic or how did they look at the world? When they go shopping currently, what is it look like? When they go online, where are they going? What’s their traffic pattern now? You have to understand that before you can do anything else so that you end up with the business that you build for the people you want to serve so step number one is understanding their perspective. Step number two, as I said a moment ago, familiarity which I think it’s insanely powerful and yet overlooked, right? Because we always want to be innovative and innovation’s great. I’m not saying by familiarity that what we do or what we build on our websites and then we don’t want it to look like anybody else or other brands but you’re doing yourself a huge disservice if you don’t understand what feels familiar to your ideal customer because that feeling of familiarity that people that we as humans feel, it creates comfort and lets us know we’re in the right place. To overlook the power that is a huge gap, right? So you don’t want to copy but if you understand the perspective of your ideal customer and what like, your experience, you and your wife’s experience in a store like that feeling of what’s familiar and what’s not familiar is tremendously powerful to let people know, “Hey this is, I’m in the right place. This is somebody I want to do business with. This is a business where I belong.” So it’s powerful.

Scott: Yes, everyone has examples where you walk in to some place and it just doesn’t feel right.

Jeffrey: That’s me in Home Depot. Like I break out in a sweat in Home Depot. Nothing wrong with it, it’s just not a brand for me. It’s just things are going to fall in my head.

Scott: So you like Lowe’s better, right? Because Lowe’s tailors more to the consumer where Home Depot tailors more to the construction or trade professional.

Jeffrey: I’m a service-oriented guy. I like a lot of help. I don’t like to figure things out on my own. I’m always amused by IKEA which actually I can really enjoy the IKEA experience of unfolded prop for and I talked about them and Lingo as well. Like in so many ways is such a brilliant business model but I referred to it in the book as absolutely sadistic. Like who came up with this business model? Like it’s fascinating and that’s why it works but think about IKEA like there’s nothing easy about that experience, right? You follow a set path through entire store and if it’s a big IKEA it’s like floors and you’re following the arrows and then you had to go pick out your own merchandise. One of the example I give in the book is understanding whether your customer, your ideal customer, are they time-conscious or cost-conscious. Now, IKEA is not appealing to the time-conscious customer and I actually don’t think they’re — I mean they are very cost-conscious like the prices are great. I think the language that IKEA is speaking is the satisfaction of the do-it-yourselfer, right? People that really enjoy the IKEA experience take a great deal of satisfaction in making it through the maze of the store, pulling things off their shelf, managing to somehow get all those components in your compact car — which is always like people strap on the roof–and getting it home, building it. Nothing about this is saving time but you stand back with your hands on your hips and you’re like, “Damn, I did that.”

Scott: Yes I think my most recent IKEA example was just after the holidays. My daughter wanted a desk and so we said, “Okay we’ll go to IKEA and get one.” There wasn’t even a discussion of other stores. We are going to go there and get one. Navigating through the aisles I tend to wander around. My wife hates it and she never can find me in the store. I’m just wandering around looking at stuff. Then, they find a desk that they like. Yes, we’re going to go pick it up and my daughter’s about to pull the wrong color because the item numbers are the same but there’s just a little circle with the color on it.”Whoa, whoa, whoa — I said, — that’s a brown one you wanted the white one.” It’s in another bin. Then taking it home and assembling I showed her the manual. I said, “Okay I want you to see how far you can get with this.” I said, “Show me how many languages are on this manual, right? There’s no languages at all on the manuals, just pictures and I said, “Because it’s global business they don’t want to translate all the stuff so they just do pictures, right? Lego is the same way. She just couldn’t get through the manual so I helped her through it. When I was unpacking the box, I was amazed at how much little extra material there was in the box. I mean it goes all the way down to the packaging. The overall process like you said. It’s either time or cost-conscious. Me driving to IKEA which is like 20 miles away from my house to having the finished product was over a day, right? Because I didn’t even finish assembling the thing on the first day and we had to stop and have lunch there where I had to buy this Swedish fish, right? All that stuff and I mean they do kind of suck you in but the whole experience there and watching everybody else do the same thing is really, really interesting but it’s a hugely successful business.

Jeffrey: Yes.

Scott: Yet it’s not that innovative, right? I mean they just have a bunch of stuff for your home. I guess that is their, the do-it-yourselfer is kind of their tribe.

Jeffrey: Yes but I say, exactly, that’s what I mean by Lingo. It’s like that’s the language they’re speaking. I will tell you the only I have ever been in IKEA is because I’ve been in a relationship with someone who was a do-it-yourselfer. I, on my own, I’m not in any way, shape or form an IKEA customer. I will go there to buy, I don’t know, sheets, maybe drapes or something that’s pre-made. I’m not a builder guy. I’m not a build-it-yourself-guy so they’re not speaking my language so that’s the last store I would think of. If I wanted a desk that’s the last store I would think of.
I’m going to go to a furniture store, right and that’s the point of Lingo. It’s like it’s understanding your language and creating that alignment between your ideal customer. I’m really not — like so I’ve been on it and experienced it and it’s always been because I’ve been in a relationship with someone who enjoyed that experience. So I’m a willing participant but on my own: absolutely no interest in that. I’m more of a, “Let me go to a furniture store and I’ll pay more, right? Because I’m not going to be as cost-conscious but I’m more time-conscious and I don’t really gain — first of all, I know that the IKEA building experience is not going to give me the feeling of satisfaction and personal achievement that others might get because I’m going to completely fail at it and I know that. I’m not good. I’m going to be so frustrated. I’m going to put wrong pieces together so it’s actually going to be a humiliating experience for me so I don’t do it. I’d rather pay more and go to a store and buy a desk.

Scott: Yes and then I mean it goes back to your third step, right ? Which is about style, right? So your style is different than mine because I shop at IKEA and you don’t.

Jeffrey: Yes, style and style is the decision maker. That’s how I refer to it because we were a short attention span society. We make decisions everyday based on what? It’s often on style. When style is everything, it could be the style of your branding. They just like the choice of your font. It’s how your website feels. It’s how your storefront feels. A comparison scenario I offer in Lingo is a — which is an experience I do know — if you go to a T.J. Maxx or you go to a store that carries a variety of designers, you’re shopping by size. So I’ll go up the shirt rack with all the mediums and within that section of mediums you’ll have a variety of designers and as you flip through the hangers what makes you stop on one versus another? You bypass 90% of them but something will make you stop. What makes you stop is because, “Hey, that style is me. That style resonates for me.” That is exactly what makes people stop on your website. If you are a really — like I feel the same way about when I book trips online for hotels like, I like a contemporary style, warm but contemporary. I’ve flipped through all the website go right passed all the ones with big grand chandeliers.
So I have my one excursion like that every now and then but overall that doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t like grandeur, big chandeliers, big force. I like warm contemporary straight line so as we flip through things in our life whether there it’s walking down main street, walk down a mall, flipping through websites, we are instantly making decisions about what brands and businesses resonate for us on the style of whether that style speaking on our behalf. I think it’s a really important component that is often overlooked in a very detailed one. This is where pay attention to the font that you choose. Is it conveying the style that your ideal customer resonates with or not? Because often what we buy as brands and who we choose to do business with is really an extension of our own voice. The clothes we put on our body along with the book, there was a course called the Lingo Course and we’re talking about style in last week’s call and I gave everyone an assignment which was for the next week: Pay close attention to the message you’re sending based on how you chose to dress that day and as you go about life over the next week, pay attention to how often you make a decision based on style because really the style that resonates for us, really, I said, it’s kind of an extension of what we already want to say about us.

Scott: Yes and that’s interesting. I do that all the time and speaking of fonts. If I had to pick a font, oh, that will drive me crazy. I don’t know, All I know serif and sans serif, that’s about it and so just pick one and go. But the style–it kind of goes back into what we’ve been talking about the whole time is you’re manufacturing a style based on your ideal customer and if you don’t know your ideal customer, you can’t really manufacturer a style that they’re going to like.

Jeffrey: Absolutely. You’re going to miss it.

Scott: Yes, so, you’re going to miss. But then how do we figure out how much the style is worth to them, right? Because you go on in your book and you’re talking about pricing in words but like how do you figure out the price. Is there a tolerance so do you try to move them up move them down? I know you talked a lot about the whole $99 trick which is just a dollar short of a hundred but that’s a big deal, right? Because $100 looks way bigger than 99 cents or $99 and in I don’t know who –how many years ago — figured that out but it’s true–

Jeffrey: If you want to–

Scott: –and then Walmart moved to 97, right?

Jeffrey: Yes, if you want the customer that’s going to be conscious like that needs to be conscious of that, right? One of the things that drives me crazy is how often I work with entrepreneurs who complained that their customers are nickel-and-diming them but then I look at their pricing structure it’s a completely nickel and dime price structure, right?
So if you’re going to — if you’re going to bring a high level of consciousness to the price by — as Walmart does — pricing your merchandise, your services to the 100th of the cent by making the whole transaction expire running entire ad campaigns about rollback pricing you’re going to bring high-level consciousness to your pricing then you can’t complain that you have people that pay a lot of attention to the price. That’s actually who you’ve called forward. You’re speaking that language or speaking the price conscious language. It s why if you look at high-end brands it’s all extremely vague.

You go to a restaurant, a super high-end restaurant there aren’t even prices. Or, stores that I studied to build my photography business like Ralph Lauren’s flagship store in New York City, Bergdorf Goodman. The brands that I studied that were high-end for what I wanted to kind of emulate because I wanted to speak to who they’re speaking to. I want to understand what their language was because I didn’t know it. I grow up lower-middle class so I had to understand what is the language of affluence. When I found it from a comprising structure is that it’s very vague. Everything is rounded off. Nothing’s rounded off to the 100th of a cent or even as $500 or as $5,000. It’s 250. There’s vagueness and so vague that — and I talk about this in Lingo that it’s not just, it’s also the visual, right?

Even putting a dollar sign in your prices is bringing consciousness to the fact that you’re talking about money as opposed to something cost 250 like at my price list. As a photographer, if a portrait is $1,000, it’s just going to be a 1,000, no decimal point, no dollar sign, right? So I’m taking a consciousness off of that dollar sign even visually because I want to speak the language of very vagueness about money because I’m dealing with people. I want to speak the language of people who don’t need to care that much.

Scott: That’s interesting how you just, I mean you’re basically anchoring them not on the dollar, right?

Jeffrey: Right and it’s your choice. This is what I say in the book. I’ll tell you that pricing creates perception. So, the first thing, one of the thing I do with my coaching clients when we come home we get down to the nitty-gritty of working out the pricing. The first that I make them do is to decide, make a list, describe three to five words of the perception you want people to have about your business based on your price.
What is the perception you want? Is it affordability? Is it high quality? Like what’s the perception you decide on the perception first. Then, decide what price. Does it need to go get that perception? I give you, Scott, a direct example. When I return at 20 years old to my hometown to start my photography business, I struggled and failed for the first three years. Then realized that I was on a luxury product that I needed to speak the language of affluent people so I completely reinvented and rebranded myself after having studied these high end brands and developed a new business as a photographer two hours away from a current location of my hometown. There was a short period of time of a couple months there where I still have a foot in both markets.

So I was, on one town I’m selling an 8 X 10 for $48.02, which is already crazy number and I explained that in the book. I learned the formula how to price things so I follow it verbatim so already in my hometown I’m telling my community I’m a high end photographer but selling it for $48.02 which is low-end pricing. Whereas the new market I was opening up as a photographer I was selling that same 8 by 10 for $300.
Now, there were slight modifications. One is a better mounting board but nothing that I did added up to a lot of dollars to create a greater impact but here’s what made the difference. It was all about perception. I would not have been perceived as the high quality photographer producing the best work for the most sophisticated people if I charged too little. I actually had more pressure on myself to make sure I charged enough to create the perception that aligned with the people I was going to serve. So you actually get to this, people feel powerless by pricing. They feel like they’re going to lose customers by pricing. The reality is you get to decide what perception you want your ideal customer to have. What market? Where you want to be positioned in the market and then establish your pricing.

Scott: Yes, I totally agree and I love the $48.02 because then when you negotiate two cents off then you feel like you’ve won.

Jeffrey: I was one of those people complained like, “Why are my customers not willing to pay? Why are they nickel-and-diming me?” Well, I’m charging two extra cents. Like it was so ridiculous but at 20 years old, I couldn’t see it.

Scott: Yes. Yes. So you mentioned a lot about the book, where can we grab the book? Obviously, online or where do we get that?

Jeffrey: Yes. Yes, it’s the lingobook.com, is a landing page for but it’s also of course, Amazon so yes it’s out there and ready to go.

Scott: Then if anybody had a question for you, Jeffrey, based on anything that they heard today, what is your preferred contact method, social media, email, what do you like?

Jeffrey: Yes, actually what I like is to give — again because my whole thing is about speaking people’s language. I like to make sure people have the opportunity to get to know me better and my work before we even begin to form a relationship so I actually like to give something away. So we created for your listeners the Lingo Media Kit which they can get at jeffreyshaw.com/scottking. It s pretty simple to remember. In and in that Lingo Media Kit is actually an infographic of a visual of the 5-Steps of Developing the Secret Language Strategy. There is also a free chapter on perspective which is not the first chapter by the way. It’s, I think, the third chapter, first chapter is just too easy. I want to give away the one that is most important and this is the most important chapter on the book and the there’s an audio version of the free chapter as well which have has sound effects and all that. So the whole entire Lingo Media Kit is available at jeffreyshaw.com/scottking.

Scott: Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Jeffrey. I really appreciate you spending time with me today and teaching my audience about pricing.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/speak-like-your-ideal-customer-jeffrey-shaw/feed/0This episode is all about writing and creating content using your customer s own language. My next guest, Jeffrey Shaw (@JeffreyShaw1 ), talks to me about how to help businesses stand out, attract their ideal customers, and create brand loyalty that supersedes price. His latest book, LINGO, helps business owners and entrepreneurs understand their ideal customer on [...]NoNo38:09Scott KingCreating Long Form Content – Miles Anthony Smithhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/creating-long-form-content-miles-anthony-smith/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/creating-long-form-content-miles-anthony-smith/#respondThu, 25 Jan 2018 14:00:21 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3746Miles Anthony Smith ( @Miles_Anthony ) is a seasoned content marketer and provides some tips on how to perform solid keyword research using a reputable tool. How to curate content with solid on-page SEO elements. Then, how to push your content out for initial clicks and links.

3 Phases for Longform Posts

Solid keyword research using a reputable tool.

Curating long form content on a topic with solid on-page SEO elements.

Peter Lisoskie (@chatbotnation ) is helping companies integrate AI chatbots into their marketing, branding and customer service strategies. Peter thinks there’s a shift happening and much of the current digital economy has transformed from a blessing to a curse. Email, websites, social media, and webinars are becoming the new NOISE of the marketplace.

It’s time to think different.

Early adopters are building ai chatbots. In this episode, Peter, explains to how chatbots will be the next form of owned media especially now that Facebook is reprioritizing its news feed. Peter talks to me about the different types of bots, how to build them and how to increase conversion rates using AI bots. Enjoy!

Contact Peter

Full Podcast Transcription

Peter: Thank you, Scott. It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’re going to have a great time talking about all the stuff that you probably want to know the role of Chatbots.

Scott: Yeah, today with me on the show is Peter Lisoskie. He’s on Twitter @chatbotnation, and we’re going talk about Chatbots. Peter is going to tell us a whole lot about what we need to know to run these things on our websites, in our messaging services and for customer service and sales perspectives. Peter, starting off, can you kind of level set us what the difference is between a chatbot that runs on my website and maybe one that runs in a messenger service or wherever it runs. Because I understand the website one because I like to interact with those, I can circumvent a lot of marketing automation by just going straight to the source and talking to the bot or maybe a person that’s monitoring one of those.

What is the difference between the website bot and the messenger bot?

Peter: Well, there’s a really kind distinct differences and use the backup just a second, Scott, everybody is on the same page with us. Chatbots really you probably heard the term there automated software service programs that aid in conversation. They can help you do a lot of things we’ll get into that here with Scott in the show. But as far as a website chatbot, if you guys go to website and you look down at the bottom and you click on chat typically in the past one of two things happened, either somebody popped up and you started talking to them and I was live chat or the other problem happened which is you clicked it and no was there and they said, please leave us an email and will get back to you in 24 hours. That s become a real problem because everybody wants instant these days.

The website Chatbot can handle a lot of customer service. Nowadays, Scott, too we have what’s called Artificial Intelligence and machine learning where we build these engines that it starts out with like a FAQ, its Frequently Asked Questions but then it can learn based on people’s questions and answer back from the questions that was given that weren t part of the original frequently asked questions, okay. That s kind of a role of website Chatbot they set in your website, the other part that Scott was mentioning is the Messenger app and there’s different ones we build they could be for slack kick, but the biggest and most popular is Facebook, as you guys know, because Facebook as a couple billion people and they’re pushing, Scott, about 1.6 billion messages a month through a Facebook Messenger right now. Now, what I love about the Messenger app is the fact that they’re instant. So in other words, when one of somebody clicks on a link or scans a messenger code which we can talk about or types a keyword into a social comment the messenger window pops up and the chatbot immediately and instantly starts interacting with that person. A website Chatbot can’t do that yet. So that was nice and they can start engaging them right away and that instant is really, really powerful. It’s like think of the instant news feed notifications you get on Facebook, the other thing that chatbot can do in a Messenger feed is they can do auto responders like an email system.

So you can do a whole nurture sequences inside the chatbot based on what is important and relevant to the user. It can also do segmentation, Scott, where as a user’s conversing or clicking on buttons or typing in questions the chatbot is segmenting and putting that person in a particular interest area or bucket so it is giving them content that s relevant to them or that is interesting to them.

Scott: And then with the Facebook bot does that fit on my website? Forgive me, because I actually don’t know. Do I have to be logged in to everything for it to work? So say for instance, I’m not logged in to Facebook Messenger on my laptop because I’m primarily a desktop user and I go to a website but they have a messenger bot.

Will it work or do I have to be logged in to everything all at the same time for it work?

Peter: That s a really good question, Scott, the answer is no. For example, you could even have a messenger button so you had it on the side bot. Let say, Scott, you wanted to give them a — we have like a marketing strategy playbook for chatbots for companies. So I would say I have that on my right sidebar they can click on that and basically the Facebook Messenger window pops up automatically you do not have to be logged in to Facebook for the Messenger window to pop up and for them to start interacting with the chatbot.

When do people realize they need a chatbot? When do you do this? Or do you do it now because it’s hot?

Peter: The way I look at it, Scott, we have moved over the course of history. It’s been kind out a decade at a time. We went from PCs then we went to the internet, then we went to smart phones and now we’re moving to messaging not Messenger but messaging as the new platform. Conversation is the new economy. So this is not a fad, it is new and it is going to be look at very carefully in 2018 by a lot of companies and it’s something you should if you’re listening to the show, you should look at very carefully as well. The chatbots can be used, let’s say, you’re doing you could do a Facebook Ad, Google Ad, you could do a podcast show like yours, Scott, you can do blogging, you could do social media comments, whatever you’re doing out there in the digital space you can bring all of that into the chatbot and then the chatbot can do leave qualification. The chatbot can do customer service, the chatbot can collapse your sales models to get to a point where there interested and they want to contact your dealer or they want to buy something online from you.

But think about it this way, Scott, the biggest and most powerful way to look at it is every company has a customer journey and the chatbot creates this conversational journey that parallels the customer journey. Sometimes a user needs to have live interaction with the human being and sometimes it’s very appropriate for the chatbot to carry the load in many of those situations in the conversation. So that’s how we work with different clients as we’re mapping out their customer journey and then were overlaying the conversational journey that supports that customer journey.

How do I build a chatbot?

Peter: If you want to do it yourself there’s about 300 and counting now different chatbot platforms out there at the very low end the very basic one is ManyChat but there’s other ones. There’s Motion.ai from HubSpot, there’s Conversica, there’s Engati and there is Chatfuel there. And they all serve different purposes. They have different focuses and different specialties. Again, what you need to know is like what kind of bottom I’m trying to develop and then how techie are you? If you’re not very techy my recommendation is use ManyChat because it’s really built for very low end what we called done bots where they’re just kind of guided conversations. ManyChat has some functionality but not a lot compared to the others but you can still develop a bot a few days and have it out there. If you want to just have something as simple as I want to bring people into the bot and I want to give my lead magnet and build the least. ManyChat can do that just fine. But if you want to do something a little bit more interactive like what we do it Active Attention Design was talking animated characters and some intelligence with AI and functionality, you need to be more technical and there are different bot platforms to do that.

You mentioned AI a couple times, is this some type of algorithm that you wrote or you subscribe to? How does that work?

Peter: There’s different levels of Artificial Intelligence. One them is they can be built into the platforms where it is called a natural language understanding engine, Scott, and it has machine learning. In the customer service world, for example, what we would do is we put in we build the engine out with the number of questions that we would anticipate the customer might ask and then we would provide the appropriate response, okay? That’s a baseline and then from there the bot through machine learning and through all of the user sitter coming in and the questions that are being asked you can start learning what kinds of phrases and things that are being picked up and it can provide answers back based on its algorithms, okay, that s one way. The other way is the ability to set up Artificial Intelligence through a more technical fashion like what use to be call API.ai which is now call Dialogflow it s a tool by Google where you can actually create what they call intense and advance and it can trigger certain responses or functionality based on responses or inputs given by the user. And then there’s a third form AI which is called Deep Learning AI which is done with the tool like a TensorFlow where you actually your training the bot but it is getting the intelligence factor is much higher after you train it. It can handle even contextual things in language, phrases, you know, certain types of words like to, too, and two, right, where we have to the box, the number two or I want to go as well too, right. The TensorFlow can handle those kinds of things but you do have to train it and it has to have some deep learning.

Do you have any data on some of the retention rates or open rates or engagement rates that these things help drive for your customers?

Peter: It’s quite a bit better. We have what we created as called Active Attention Design and that only means that they open in click-through rates. I noticed a long time ago, Scott, my background is in tech and everything I try to do is I want to create this human connectedness, right. One of the first things in my work life, Scott, was when I started it was we have VT100 terminal we didn’t even have PCs, and when we first got our first Mac classes and I pull out of the box and the screen lit up and there was like files and folders. I mean was this almost this emotional interactions like, wow! This is like really cool.

When we created Active Attention Design, it was born out of the fact that the world right now we have a real problem and that is everybody’s in the sandbox of websites, email marketing, social media, things like that. Well, you know what, the problem we have is like HubSpot just reported a couple months ago over 55% of people spend less than 15 seconds on website now. Email marketing industry averages about 20% open rate, 1% to 2% click-through rate, social media it just adding more and more to the noise.

From customer standpoint, what used to be a blessing is now a curse and we are creating more and more of this noise and not only that, Scott, but its passive. I mean, if you think about the email marketing situation you could be using a very powerful tool that is doing segmentation, but the problem is is that that person that customer still has to go to their inbox. They have to open the email — open their inbox, they still have to find the email, read it and clicked though it. And the average American these days is up getting about a 121 emails a day, that’s average.

Hence, how do you get in hold a customer’s attention, right? That’s the problem, so we moved a different sandbox with chatbots and what we call Active Attention Design. We’re using talking animated characters, we’re using neuroscience and cognitive biases, we’re creating a conversational user interface standard, Scott, that don’t exist. And we’re doing this by looking with our clients, looking at the analytics and seeing what’s working and what it’s not working because if you think about it somebody way back when a graphical user interface standards had do the same thing, they didn t exist, right?

What this is all lead to is typically we’re getting north of 80% open rates typically around 90% and we’re getting north of 35% click-through rates. So if you compare that to email marketing and say like you’re getting 2% and I’m getting 35% I’m getting over 16 times a click-through rate for the same cells back.
Then it begs a question, well, why would I go hang out an email on an own standpoint when I can do that and get a much better response in a chatbot, because I can build a bot list on the chatbot.

Scott: Yeah, and until it getting more and more difficult. Like what you said about email as passive because yeah you go and you fill out a form and it takes you forever to actually talk to somebody and get like a real answer but a chatbot you can either qualify in or out that person almost immediately and then advertising is getting more and more difficult especially when what was it? Was it last Friday when Facebook announced that they’re going to reallocate the feed to be in a more of the people that you want to hear from unless for advertiser.

Could you use Chatbots in that instance where our Facebook cost-per-click is going to go up so maybe we shift up those funds to maybe a Chatbot strategy and our engagement rates go up.

Can we save money by doing the Chatbot or they just as expensive as advertising? What’s the cost benefit here? Am I on the right track? Is that makes sense?

Peter: Yeah. No, that’s a really good scenario you bring up and it’s very important. I don’t know if you guys have heard but Zuckerberg last Friday this was reported, I saw it in Bloomberg News their market cap would down about 3.3 billion dollars. With his statement which is I’m planning to shift users news feed towards content from family and friends at the expense of material and media outlets business, right? I already know, Scott, because I own a Health and Wellness Center it s a Brick & Mortar and I’ve been doing Facebook Ads for the last three years and my cost per lead is gone from about two bucks to ten bucks and that’s just in that period of time.

Now, if you start taking away the news feed for businesses in media’s they’re forced to go do pay. Facebook is already come out for the last year-and-a-half. In fact, they even said that by the end of 2017 they’re going run out ads based on their news feed. So if you look at a basic Economics 101: Supply-Demand, what do think is going to happen to that advertising cost? It’s going go way up, right? That’s a paid, right.

If you look at companies, they’re probably listening, if you’re a CMO, you think of things in terms of pay and turned it on, right. So, you’re paid strategy on Facebook anyway is going go up. We already know where Google PPC is that’s gone up depending on what your keywords are and things like that. In the earn space, you know, Scott, you’re doing a podcast so you’re getting sharing of your show but there’s also social media, there’s blogging and things like that. You can still do and that’s a good strategy and earned it harder to scale and it takes time, right.

If you want more of a scale of a list of response you got to go over to the pay. But either way at the end of the day the owned is where this is going and where I think it’s going for 2018 in a huge way and that is if I am spending money and the cost of advertising is going up and I’m spending time and which time is money in the earn space too as well, I better have a good own strategy and in my mind really there’s only two good ways to do own, one, is email marketing and other is chatbots.

If you look at — let’s just do the math really simply for all your listeners. If I’m bringing in a thousand leads to an email marketing campaign and I’m only getting a 20% open rate I only have 200 people that opened an email. If I do the same time thousand leads in the chatbot and I have an 80% open rate I have 800 people that saw that message and open it.

Now, if I go the click-through and I say, out of those 200 I’m only getting a 2% response that’s only four people that click-through an email marketing. If I get a 35% or 40% response on the chatbot that had 800 people have opened it I’m looking at about what is that 300-350 people that click through versus four people. So you just do the math, I mean just the math tells you along which one would you pick. And by the way, Chatbots are interactive, they’re conversational. We do animated characters and make them entertaining and fun and engaging. They have artificial intelligence.

They do segmentation relevance like email but they have so much more capability and so much more richness while you’re developing a list and having this interactive conversation that you can’t have with email.

Yes, that’s really really tough. I mean it sounds like a great deal if the metrics are what you say, do you have anything that we can read, point as to or are we just supposed to take your word for it?

Peter: We have different — so if you go over to our website botnation.tech, it’s botnation.tech. We have different Play books and case studies and white papers that you guys you can look at it and see for yourself on these are basic — because we have clients across manufacturing space, craft breweries, coaches, authors and speakers, software. And it’s very similar across the board.

Obviously, each of them have their different conversations but at the end of the day if a customer has the ability to talk to someone instantly to be able to get content and information that’s interesting and relevant to them. We’re not shoving something down their throat in a marketing message to be able to choose their own journey and get the results they want when they wanted it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week you’re going to get a better response and we’re seeing that in our numbers.

I am going to try this and I’m going put it on my own site somehow. What should I do?

Peter: Yeah, it depends on kind of which approach like in the conversational journey what bot strategy, if your focus more on, hey, I want to just see what happens if I put on my website for customer service then I would do a website bot. If you’re more focused on I want to try this out for lead qualification, marketing, branding then a Facebook Messenger bot is more appropriate for you, Scott.

Well, I am going to try it out and hopefully I don’t stay up too late doing it.

Peter: I know you have some technical background you can figure it out. The thing is this market as with any technical market and I’ve been in technology for my whole career, a lot of pride in element is moving pretty fast, there’s always new things that are coming up that you can add to functionality. So the best it’s either do it yourself or come to us in a company if you wanted to have it done for you and then we keep up on all the technology and add either version 2.0, 3.0. And were having talk about voice that s coming in a big way not just in home voice like in smart speakers like Amazon Echo, Google Home Products but also voice out there on the internet as well that you’ll see some of that happening later in 2018.

What do people ask you for advice or opinion on outside of chatbots and health?

Peter: I talk to people quite a bit about just business in general as far as how do you strategically — I love the innovation of business and where things are going but there’s also some basics in business as far as marketing strategy, financial strategy and analysis and things like that. I have people that asked me about that I’m going to be jumping on a couple boards here for high-tech companies to help out and do those kinds of things. It’s just general, I’ve grown different businesses, I run the visions for corporations and so there’s a little bit of experience that I have that feel like I could help and pass on to people.

What do you listen to or read to get inspiration? Do you follow anyone, anything regularly?

Peter: I guess as far as reading, couple of books I’m reading or have read or reading right now, one of them is Play Bigger by Christopher Lochhead and gain in fact, we talk — he’s working with us on the Active Attention Design. He, by the way, has a really cool podcast it’s called Legends and Losers and it’s been named by Forbes Magazine podcast for Silicon Valley. He has some very interesting guess to come on.
The other book that I am reading now which is been around for the while but it’s a really good book, The 12 Week Year, which I find very fascinating to see, how do get that clarity and focus to make sure you’re moving through and making things happen 90 days at a time.

If you didn’t have any responsibilities at work or work next week what would you do with your time?

Peter: Probably go travel back to Europe. I travel all over the world and there’s been some cool places that I’ve to and then there’s some places that I was like, because it was always business, Scott, so there’s places like, “Wow, this is really cool place,” but I never had time to explore because all those working. So I’d like to go back to different countries in Europe and just travel around and have some take some time.

Scott: Business travel you always get to see the hotel, the conference room in the airport.

Peter: Yeah, that s about it. And occasionally on the weekend you get a little bit of time over but not earlier though.

Scott: If you stay an extra day or two and then you got the family call in your like, “Hey, aren’t you done? Can’t you come back?” Well, thanks Peter. Any closing thoughts on chatbots or anything else?

Peter: If you want we have — if you guys want to see what this is all about we do — if you go to botnation.tech there were some demos down at the bottom of the homepage. If you want talk to us there, you can, if you want to hang out with us I have group called Chatbot Nation, it’s a closed group but you can certainly join it, free of charge. I do live streaming in there and talk about what’s going on in conversational experiences and things like that and chatbots and that s freeway for you to learn about this whole world that were moving into.

What is your preferred method to people contact you with a question based on what they heard today or you know anything else?

Peter: Just go to botnation.tech and go to contacts in the contact menu and you can ask a question there. Typically, where we’re going is everything is getting importance to the chatbot. So then the chatbot can help you out with a lot of things but if you want to talk to me directly then just put in that request and we’ll switch it over and we’ll have a chat.

Peter, well thanks so much for your time. I really enjoyed the education and hopefully we taught everybody a little bit about chatbots.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/chatbots-peter-lisoskie/feed/0Peter Lisoskie (@chatbotnation ) is helping companies integrate AI chatbots into their marketing, branding and customer service strategies. Peter thinks there’s a shift happening and much of the current digital economy has transformed from a blessing to a curse. Email, websites, social media, and webinars are becoming the new NOISE of the marketplace. It’s time to [...]NoNo28:32Scott KingAI, chatbot, chatfuel, conversica, engati, Facebook, hubspot, motion.aiContemporary Branding – Justin Foster and Emily Soccorsyhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/contemporary-branding-justin-foster-and-emily-soccorsy/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/contemporary-branding-justin-foster-and-emily-soccorsy/#respondThu, 11 Jan 2018 14:00:40 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3713
Justin Foster (@fosterthinking) and Emily Soccorsy (@emilyatlarge) operate Root and River. Root and River is a contemporary branding practice that finds a leader’s branding mission and enables the machine to spread the word.

In this episode, Justin and Emily talk about how to find and define your mission. We discuss how to attract the right customers and repel the rest. They talk to me about my brand and dozens of tips you can implement for yourself or for your company. This episode is full of outstanding advice and quotes.

80% of the time a leader doesn t know what their personal mission is.

The biggest challenge is to identify your personal mission.

Many leaders are detached from their own identities.

Don t overly define your mission based on your audience.

Branding is as much as about repulsion as it is about attraction.

You can t focus group your mission.

A contemporary brand is a combination of culture, customer experience and Innovation.

Questions During Podcast

How do you find a leaders spirit?

If you are supposed to find a leaders mission, how do you describe your own mission?

What do you consider the biggest challenge for brands today?

How do you create a 21st century brand?

What is the difference between a rebrand and a relaunch?

What is your favorite brand? Why?

Which brands miss the mark?

What would you advise that I do with my brand?

What do people ask your advice on other than branding? Are you an expert at anything else?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/contemporary-branding-justin-foster-and-emily-soccorsy/feed/0Justin Foster (@fosterthinking) and Emily Soccorsy (@emilyatlarge) operate Root and River. Root and River is a contemporary branding practice that finds a leader’s branding mission and enables the machine to spread the word. In this episode, Justin and Emily talk about how to find and define your mission. We discuss how to attract the right customers [...]NoNo34:38Scott KingbrandingLimit Buzzwords – Theresa Lanowitzhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/limit-buzzwords-theresa-lanowitz/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/limit-buzzwords-theresa-lanowitz/#respondThu, 04 Jan 2018 14:00:48 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3694Theresa Lanowitz (@vokeinc) is Founder and Head Analyst at Voke. She is globally recognized as a relentless advocate for software quality. She is a strategic thinker, and influencer in the software development lifecycle including; testing, virtualization, cyber security, release management, and mobile. Theresa authors the popular IT Superhero Series of books.

In this episode, Theresa talks about how marketers should use analysts and experts. She advises marketers be more aggressive and to stop leaning on buzzwords and instead message your unique value proposition.

Questions During Podcast

How has the market for experts and influencers changed?

In this age of consolidation what should technology buyers look for from the analyst firms and when should they seek more specialized advice?

What advice would you offer them to be more effective in positioning themselves?

How have you seen vendors most effectively use the interactions and outputs for their own marketing?

What do you consider the biggest challenge for vendors today?

What software or market would you want to sell in?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

Contact Theresa

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/limit-buzzwords-theresa-lanowitz/feed/0Theresa Lanowitz (@vokeinc) is Founder and Head Analyst at Voke. She is globally recognized as a relentless advocate for software quality. She is a strategic thinker, and influencer in the software development lifecycle including; testing, virtualization, cyber security, release management, and mobile. Theresa authors the popular IT Superhero Series of books. In this episode, Theresa [...]NoNo36:05Scott KingUsing Machine Learning to Mine Social Media Data – Lou Jordanohttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/using-machine-learning-mine-social-media-data-lou-jordano/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/using-machine-learning-mine-social-media-data-lou-jordano/#respondThu, 14 Dec 2017 13:00:22 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3681Lou Jordano is the chief marketing officer at Crimson Hexagon, bringing more than 20 years of experience building and leading high-impact teams within global enterprises and high growth startups. Prior to Crimson Hexagon, Lou served as the CMO for Attivio, a privately held cognitive search and insight platform company. Previously, Lou was the CMO at Ektron, now Episerver, and held leadership positions at TIBCO Software and EMC, now Dell. Lou holds a Master of Arts from Hofstra University and a Bachelor of Arts from Holy Cross College.

In this episode, Lou and I talk about the cultural differences and constraints at companies trying to use social media platforms. Lou then explains the prevalence of shared images and how machine learning will provide marketers with powerful context to sell more products and services.

Questions During Podcast

Are you scraping social posts and data and helping companies determine what is happening with their brands?

What do your your customers tell you about what your platform does for them?

Do you watch marketing trends for your own business?

Can you tell us what is trending right now?

Have you ever pulled an all-nighter playing with the Crimson Hexagon platform?

What are some tips on using social media data to inform online/social as well as offline marketing campaigns?

How do you advise companies on using social media platforms?

How do you scrape metadata from images?

What is your perspective on AI and machine learning, and how does this affect the future of marketing?

What is your favorite social campaign?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

How can AI help marketers optimize their campaigns and messaging?

What is the most common question people ask you?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/using-machine-learning-mine-social-media-data-lou-jordano/feed/0Lou Jordano is the chief marketing officer at Crimson Hexagon, bringing more than 20 years of experience building and leading high-impact teams within global enterprises and high growth startups. Prior to Crimson Hexagon, Lou served as the CMO for Attivio, a privately held cognitive search and insight platform company. Previously, Lou was the CMO at [...]NoNo33:20Scott KingAI, Facebook, Instagram, machine learning, TwitterThe Search for Marketing Strategy – Adam Piernohttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-strategythe-search-for-strategy-adam-pierno-adam-pierno/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-strategythe-search-for-strategy-adam-pierno-adam-pierno/#respondThu, 07 Dec 2017 13:00:20 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3660Adam Pierno (@apierno) is a thinker, tinkerer and Chief Strategy Officer for Santy. His experience and cross-platform thinking led his leaders to task him with mentoring up and coming industry talents. He was to deliver the same marketing training he received. Therein lies the problem. Adam is self-taught. He didn’t receive formal marketing planning or strategy training. Adam is a senior marketer like many of us and evolved with the internet as it emerged into the communication platform it is today.

In this episode, Adam talks about his search for marketing sources in order to mentor his agency staff. He describes finding materials full of jargon and not fit for the rubbish pile that eventually led him to pen his first book, Under Think It.” “Under Think It” delves into the foundational aspects of marketing strategy and is a foundational piece for any marketing planner. Outside of work, Adam enjoys relaxing with his wife and kids, and claims to generate his best ideas while running and listening to podcasts.

Questions During Podcast

Why did you write Under Think it?

Why do marketers hide behind jargon and unclear language?

What is the problem we are trying to solve?

What does success look like?

What are the constraints?

What birthed the case study?

Is influencer marketing the same as paid media?

Where do brands not spend enough time on among brand foundation, customer personas, and campaigns?

How would you advise a CMO to measure a customer journey?

How do you see digital marketing or digital experiences evolving?

Who or what do you listen to, watch or read to get inspiration?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

Contact Adam

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-strategythe-search-for-strategy-adam-pierno-adam-pierno/feed/0Adam Pierno (@apierno) is a thinker, tinkerer and Chief Strategy Officer for Santy. His experience and cross-platform thinking led his leaders to task him with mentoring up and coming industry talents. He was to deliver the same marketing training he received. Therein lies the problem. Adam is self-taught. He didn’t receive formal marketing planning or [...]NoNo41:39Scott KingJargon, Overcast, strategy, The Goal, The Phoenix ProjectHow to Create Personalized Videos at Scale – Eric Porreshttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-create-personalized-videos-at-scale-eric-porres/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-create-personalized-videos-at-scale-eric-porres/#respondThu, 30 Nov 2017 13:00:49 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3646The average consumer attention span continues to dwindle down to seconds. Eight seconds to be exact. So how are brands and marketers expected to truly connect and grab a customer s attention?

Competition to gain and retain customers is fierce and the simple tactic of merging {First Name} and {last product viewed} into an email or a web page isn t cutting it anymore, we have to get personal.

In this episode, newly appointed CMO of SundaySky, Eric Porres joins talks with me about constructing hyper-personalized videos using customer or data from pulling in data from the Facebook API.

Questions During Podcast

I watched some of the videos on your site. How do you do that?

Does the service read the Facebook API?

How fast can I target users on Facebook based on activity that day?

Can your service read my Facebook location data?

How many pieces are in a modular video?

How have your customers improved their second campaign?

What brought you to SundaySky?

What do you think is the most personalized web experience?

What do you think about a highly complex video platform solving for complexity?

Can I make a sales video with your platform instead of an on-boarding video?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work, what would you do with your time?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-create-personalized-videos-at-scale-eric-porres/feed/0The average consumer attention span continues to dwindle down to seconds. Eight seconds to be exact. So how are brands and marketers expected to truly connect and grab a customer s attention? Competition to gain and retain customers is fierce and the simple tactic of merging {First Name} and {last product viewed} into an email or [...]NoNo35:49Scott KingAI, Facebook, personalization, storytelling, videoHow I Won Webinar of the Yearhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/won-webinar-year/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/won-webinar-year/#respondThu, 23 Nov 2017 13:00:02 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3635Webinars are both a blessing and a curse. They are a blessing since you get a nice piece of content archiving a conversation for remarketing purposes. The archived webinar is easily shared amongst your prospects, partners, customers and digital campaigns. However, they are a curse because they have a lot of moving parts. Live webinars are difficult to produce since many marketers and speakers don t invest enough in preparation.

In this episode, I explain how I won to webinar of the year by popular vote on an industry site by changing everything. I mean everything. I changed the story. I changed the presentation. I changed the graphics. I completely flipped our sales presentation upside down. I created an entirely different piece to tell an entirely different story in only 9 minutes.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/won-webinar-year/feed/0Webinars are both a blessing and a curse. They are a blessing since you get a nice piece of content archiving a conversation for remarketing purposes. The archived webinar is easily shared amongst your prospects, partners, customers and digital campaigns. However, they are a curse because they have a lot of moving parts. Live webinars [...]NoNo24:18Scott Kingpowerpoint, webinarOptimizing Content for SEO – Aaron Agiushttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/optimizing-content-seo-aaron-agius/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/optimizing-content-seo-aaron-agius/#respondThu, 16 Nov 2017 13:00:35 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3550
Aaron Agius (@IAmAaronAgius) is one of the world s leading digital marketers according to Forbes. Aaron is the CEO of Louder Online, a content marketing and digital agency, and a regular contributor on Entrepreneur.com, Hubspot.com for Search, Content Marketing and Growth Hacking.

His clients include Salesforce, IBM, Coca-Cola, Intel and scores of other leading brands. Aaron joins me today to talk about Content Marketing and SEO and how to use that to grow your business or career.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/optimizing-content-seo-aaron-agius/feed/0Aaron Agius (@IAmAaronAgius) is one of the world s leading digital marketers according to Forbes. Aaron is the CEO of Louder Online, a content marketing and digital agency, and a regular contributor on Entrepreneur.com, Hubspot.com for Search, Content Marketing and Growth Hacking. His clients include Salesforce, IBM, Coca-Cola, Intel and scores of other leading brands. Aaron [...]NoNo19:36Scott Kingcontent marketing, salesforce.com, SEOGrowth Marketing Risk – Laurent Boutyhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-marketing-risk-laurent-bouty/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-marketing-risk-laurent-bouty/#commentsThu, 09 Nov 2017 13:00:03 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3516
Laurent Bouty (@LBouty) is a C-Level international Marketing and Strategy professional. Laurent brings has 25 years of international experience in Marketing, Sales, Strategy and Leadership. He has a broad Marketing experience including latest trends like analytics, social networks and mobile gained in Telecommunication, Advertising and Financial sectors. Laurent is academic Director @Solvay Brussels School and co-founder of The Beyonders, a Trendsformative Brand Agency.

In this episode, Laurent and I talk about overcoming marketing complexities and the risks involved in growth marketing. We touch on influencer marketing, artificial intelligence and questions his students ask him about marketing evolution.

Growth is like chocolate, the more you have, the more you want – Laurent Bouty [ Click to Tweet ]

Questions During Episode

What do you consider the biggest challenge for CMOs today?

Why is complexity the biggest challenge?

How would you advise marketers to grow in the right niche?

Why don t brands use the same strategy as Nike s Just Do It ?

What is your view on influencer marketing?

What do your students ask you about marketing?

How do you teach your students to be relevant?

What is one of your most successful campaigns?

Did you refurbish the family stores with the marketing budget?

What are some of the things the marketing team was worried about when refurbishing the stores?

Do you have a project that did not go well?

What do you read or listen to for inspiration?

What do you do in your free time?

Contact Laurent

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-marketing-risk-laurent-bouty/feed/2Laurent Bouty (@LBouty) is a C-Level international Marketing and Strategy professional. Laurent brings has 25 years of international experience in Marketing, Sales, Strategy and Leadership. He has a broad Marketing experience including latest trends like analytics, social networks and mobile gained in Telecommunication, Advertising and Financial sectors. Laurent is academic Director @Solvay Brussels School and [...]NoNo30:30Scott KingAI, analytics, Influencer Marketing, Nike, strategy, Tim FerrissHyper Personalization – Brett St. Clairhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/hyper-personalization-brett-st-clair/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/hyper-personalization-brett-st-clair/#respondThu, 02 Nov 2017 12:00:30 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3500
Brett St.Clair ( @brett_stclair ) is an energetic, empathetic, humorous and passionate speaker interpreting the technical world into entertaining and actionable layman’s terms. Brett’s expertise is specifically focused on building businesses and helping small and large companies through their digital transformation journey to Exponential Growth.

In this episode, Brett talks about how hyper personalization can help attract the right customers and win them over for life. Brett speaks of his work at Barclays and how difficult it was to transform 25,000 user journeys into the marketing systems to enable hyper personalization marketing.

Questions During Episode

What does Siatik do?

Describe what technology stacks you redesigned at Barclays?

How does the CMO at Barclays Bank prioritize a customer problem?

How do marketers solver for hyper personalization?

How is Emirates using personalization?

How difficult would it be to transform a website to be hyper personalized?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/hyper-personalization-brett-st-clair/feed/0Brett St.Clair ( @brett_stclair ) is an energetic, empathetic, humorous and passionate speaker interpreting the technical world into entertaining and actionable layman’s terms. Brett’s expertise is specifically focused on building businesses and helping small and large companies through their digital transformation journey to Exponential Growth. In this episode, Brett talks about how hyper personalization can [...]NoNo24:30Scott Kingadvertisting, data driven decisions, design, machine learning, mobile, personalizationHow to Sell a Website – Jock Purtlehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-sell-a-website-jock-purtle/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-sell-a-website-jock-purtle/#respondThu, 26 Oct 2017 13:00:46 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3489Jock Purtle is an expert on valuations of high growth internet companies, website valuations, and website brokerage. He has been featured and quoted in Forbes, CNBC, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Inc.com, Wired, CBS News, Geekwire, TechCrunch about digital businesses. In this episode, Jock explains how to sell a website, the CMO’s role in customer acquisition costs and keeping up with metrics in order to increase the valuation for a digital exit.

Jock s Big 5

Sales

Cost of goods sold

Sales per marketing channel

Profitability per marketing channel

Overall profit of the company

Questions During Episode:

What do you consider the biggest challenge for CMOs today?

What happens to a company that doesn t have data feedback loops?

How do executive teams need to address these challenges?

What are some simple tools companies can use to gather metrics?

What was your clients most effective channel?

What does your client think is the most important metric?

What is the most important metrics to prepare for a sale?

How do companies find themselves in trouble when spending so much money on advertising?

Why do people want to sell their business?

What are buyers looking for?

Are there any commonalities or trends for when sellers are ready to sell?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

Closing thoughts?

Contact Jock

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-sell-a-website-jock-purtle/feed/0Jock Purtle is an expert on valuations of high growth internet companies, website valuations, and website brokerage. He has been featured and quoted in Forbes, CNBC, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Inc.com, Wired, CBS News, Geekwire, TechCrunch about digital businesses. In this episode, Jock explains how to sell a website, the CMO’s role in customer acquisition costs [...]NoNo29:01Scott Kingconversion, googleads, KPI, metrics, ppc, SEO, websiteThe Blockchain – Miko Matsumura and Jason Englishhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/blockchain-miko-matsumura-jason-english/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/blockchain-miko-matsumura-jason-english/#respondThu, 19 Oct 2017 13:00:32 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3456Miko Matsumura ( @mikojava ) and Jason English ( @bluefug ) are expert enterprise software marketers that both recently moved into marketing and evangelizing the Blockchain. Miko founded crypto exchange Evercoin, and is a Limited Partner with the Pantera Capital ICO Fund. Jason is VP of Protocol Marketing at Sweetbridge. Sweetbridge sponsors the development of blockchain-based economic protocols and applications to transform high-friction global supply chains into Liquid Value Networks.

Together, Miko and Jason give me an education on the Blockchain, Bitcoin and where distributed ledgers lie in these marketplaces. They are working on fascinating problems and talk with me about how difficult it is marketing something understood by so few people.

Questions During Episode

How did you get into the blockchain?

If Blockchain will add 10X value to the internet, what will it look like after the change?

Contact Miko and Jason

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/blockchain-miko-matsumura-jason-english/feed/0Miko Matsumura ( @mikojava ) and Jason English ( @bluefug ) are expert enterprise software marketers that both recently moved into marketing and evangelizing the Blockchain. Miko founded crypto exchange Evercoin, and is a Limited Partner with the Pantera Capital ICO Fund. Jason is VP of Protocol Marketing at Sweetbridge. Sweetbridge sponsors the development of [...]NoNo31:14Scott Kingbitcoin, blockchain, ethereum, supply chainContent Marketing & SEO – James Norquayhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/content-marketing-seo-james-norquay/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/content-marketing-seo-james-norquay/#respondThu, 12 Oct 2017 12:00:05 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3412James Norquay ( @connections8 ) founded Prosperity Media in 2012 after working in the SEO & Content Marketing space for over 10 years. James started working in digital marketing by developing his own network of content websites which went on to generate well over 24 million unique visitors from organic search with a strong focus on the US market. These websites were later sold on to a US media company.

In this episode, James talks about how to set up and measure SEO for growth oriented companies. He talks about some of the pitfalls he sees with customers and how to rectify those issues. James then describes steps you can complete to measure and increase your organic traffic.

Contact James

Questions During Episode

What do you consider the biggest challenge for site owners today?

The biggest challenge is the ability to stay up to date with all the changes from a search point of view. It is also very difficult to complete all the required work in a competitive skills market.

How do teams need to address these challenges?

We partner with resident marketing teams and business owners to provide information, expertise and guidance to assist with rolling out SEO & Content Marketing growth.

What are some tools your team depends on more than the others?

Ahrefs is a great tool for reviewing link profile data which is useful for our business. Other tools we love to use are SEM Rush (Keyword Analysis), Screaming Frog (Full website scraping) and Tenon.io (accessibility testing at scale)

Why does it perform better than others?

Ahrefs is a great tool because they have a fresh link index which is far superior to other tools on the market.

How do you see search and digital experiences evolving?

I do see the emergence of voice search in the near future. Digital teams should look to make use of other search platforms like YouTube for customer acquisition at scale.

Are you doing any experiments with voice search?

We are testing featured snippets on scale for several clients which can trigger voice search results.

What was one of your most successful campaigns? What made it effective and how did you measure that?

Work for Campaign Monitor to help scale their SEO & Content efforts which assisted to high growth and 250 million investment.

What is something you did for a campaign, initiative or ecosystem that was a long shot but ended up working out?

We acquired a domain for a client for around $700 from an expired domain auction. The domain went on to be one of the top websites this media company generating millions in revenue from organic and paid media. The original $700 investment was a long shot on a domain which has a historic link profile and it paid off after investing considerable time into the project with our team.

Describe a time when a project you were overseeing did not go well?

Most projects we work on do well because we are selective on who we partner with as clients. We do not simply take on every client like other agencies we are selective. Campaigns have not performed as well as they have when we have not had internal buy in to make development changes on large domains or when clients take down content campaigns which have secured great visibility and do not redirect them.

What did you learn from that and how do you avoid that from happening again?

We have installed more effective guidelines for internal teams and offered training for all departments to ensure changes are not done without input from the wider digital team and or agency.

Closing Thoughts?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/content-marketing-seo-james-norquay/feed/0James Norquay ( @connections8 ) founded Prosperity Media in 2012 after working in the SEO & Content Marketing space for over 10 years. James started working in digital marketing by developing his own network of content websites which went on to generate well over 24 million unique visitors from organic search with a strong focus [...]NoNo36:54Scott Kingahrefs, crazy egg, deep crawl, google, growth hacking, inbound.org, metrics, moz, neil patel, screaming frog, search engine land, semrush, SEO, strategy, tenon.ioHow to Create Effective Infographics – Brian Wallacehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-create-effective-infographics-brian-wallace/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-create-effective-infographics-brian-wallace/#commentsThu, 05 Oct 2017 13:00:17 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3394Brian Wallace (@nowsourcing) evolved from a CTO to an expert in infographics. Throughout the years Brian and his team worked on many different digital media campaigns and tactics. They looked to specialize so they evaluated their collective skills and found that visually telling stories about complex ideas was what they were best at. A specialization in infographics ensued.

An Infographic is a purposeful well thought out campaign effort consisting of four high-level steps.

Concept – What is the concept or idea you want to communicate

Data – Researching your idea and validating it with interesting primary data to tell the story

Design – Visually grabbing your viewer

Implementation – Getting your idea to the right media

There have been many great infographics but many fail to grab attention. Most times not enough thought goes into the beginning of the process and teams fail to realize an integrated approach is necessary. Brian explains failed infographics and how to launch a successful one in this episode.

Contact Brian

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-create-effective-infographics-brian-wallace/feed/1Brian Wallace (@nowsourcing) evolved from a CTO to an expert in infographics. Throughout the years Brian and his team worked on many different digital media campaigns and tactics. They looked to specialize so they evaluated their collective skills and found that visually telling stories about complex ideas was what they were best at. A specialization [...]NoNo41:04Scott KingSocial Selling for the CEO – Jon Ferrarahttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/social-selling-for-the-ceo-jon-ferrara/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/social-selling-for-the-ceo-jon-ferrara/#respondThu, 28 Sep 2017 13:00:10 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3373

Jon Ferrara ( @Jon_Ferrara ) invented customer relationship management, CRM, before the term actually existed. Jon created the award-winning customer management product, GoldMine, which was eventually acquired by FrontRange in 1999. Today, Jon is the CEO at Nimble, a SaaS CRM software platform designed for social selling.

This episode is full of educational nuggets from someone practicing what he preaches. Jon is an advocate of social selling and provides several tips on how to become more effective and get more done by connecting with people the right way. Jon talks about some of the common pitfalls of CRM systems today and describes a better way to do it. He walks us through one of his personal examples on how he secured 30 meetings from a Twitter list that eventually led to Microsoft reselling his service.

Notable Quotes from Episode

5 Fs of Life That Connect People

Friends

Family

Food

Fun

Fellowship

A marketer today should be inspiring and educating on a daily basis about how their prospects and customers may become better, smarter, faster and become their trusted advisor. The easiest way is to get someone they trust to trust you.

Hashtags and mentions are Fishing lures in the digital river.

The more digital we get the more human we need to be.

5 Es of Social Selling

Educate

Enchant

Engage

Embrace

Empower

Questions During Podcast

What is Nimble?

What do you consider the biggest challenge for CMOs and marketers today?

How do executive teams need to address these challenges?

How do you see digital marketing or digital experiences evolving?

How can a salesperson use social when they don t have time?

Which one of your customers taught you the most?

What did they teach you?

Are sales and marketing teams blind from too much data?

What is your most proud accomplishment?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/social-selling-for-the-ceo-jon-ferrara/feed/0Jon Ferrara ( @Jon_Ferrara ) invented customer relationship management, CRM, before the term actually existed. Jon created the award-winning customer management product, GoldMine, which was eventually acquired by FrontRange in 1999. Today, Jon is the CEO at Nimble, a SaaS CRM software platform designed for social selling. This episode is full of educational nuggets from someone [...]NoNo41:51Scott Kingsocial sellingWhy Your Brain Filters Out Marketing – Brynn Winegardhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/why-your-brain-filters-out-marketing-brynn-winegard/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/why-your-brain-filters-out-marketing-brynn-winegard/#respondThu, 21 Sep 2017 13:00:59 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3355
Dr. Brynn Winegard (@DrBrynnWinegard) is a world renowned business brain expert. She is a full-time professional keynote speaker who combines brain and business science to dissect, redevelop, and augment how we work. Dr. Winegard teaches about persuasion and influence from a brain perspective and provides several actionable tips.

In this episode, Dr. Winegard explains how our subconscious mind makes decisions over our conscious mind and how that affects buyer behavior. She talks about how social processing versus emotional processing influences the way we interact with each other. She then explains how persuasion and influence are like cognitive ‘jujitsu’ and take advantage of fault lines in our human processing. We are all susceptible, therefore it is effective for sales and marketing people to take advantage.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/why-your-brain-filters-out-marketing-brynn-winegard/feed/0Dr. Brynn Winegard (@DrBrynnWinegard) is a world renowned business brain expert. She is a full-time professional keynote speaker who combines brain and business science to dissect, redevelop, and augment how we work. Dr. Winegard teaches about persuasion and influence from a brain perspective and provides several actionable tips. In this episode, Dr. Winegard explains how [...]NoNo38:31Scott Kingbrain science, psychologyIntent Based Buyers – Doug Llewellynhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/intent-based-buyers-doug-llewellyn/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/intent-based-buyers-doug-llewellyn/#respondThu, 14 Sep 2017 13:00:42 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3343Doug Llewellyn (@DougLlewellyn) is President & Chief Operating Officer, at Purch. He is responsible for the company s three core business units, strategic planning, corporate development activities, and Purch s business metrics and operational framework.

In this episode, Doug discusses how different web properties at Purch serve audiences with content and information enabling better and more informed purchase decisions around IT products and services. Purch owns and operates several properties like Toms Hardware, Toms IT Pro, Business.com and Space.com. Doug explains how Purch enables its marketing customers to reach intent based buyers and how he seeks to optimize customer content and increase the lifetime value of a member. Later on, Doug talks about what metrics he reads and how they help him make data-driven decisions and measure engagement scores. Doug concludes the conversation summarizing why digital marketing is so complicated and speculates on how it will evolve at faster rates.

Doug’s member engagement score metrics:

Where did a member come from?

What content did they engage with?

What purchase did they make?

Have they come back?

Are they engaging with email?

Are they taking advantage of coupons?

Questions for During Podcast

What does Purch do?

What do you consider the biggest challenge for CMOs today?

How do you deal with the fragmented problems and how do you advise your customers to deal with the same challenges?

What do you read at Purch to make data driven marketing decisions?

Do you have a name for a super user?

What is your approach to market research?

How do you see digital marketing or digital experiences evolving?

What reports or data points or KPIs do you monitor in order to optimize?

Do you look at your metrics per property or all together?

Do the web properties have different infrastructures?

How does your team manage all of the different properties?

What can brands learn from emerging disruptive brands?

What is your most proud accomplishment?

Who or what do you listen to or read to get inspiration?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

Links and Mentions

Contact Doug

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/intent-based-buyers-doug-llewellyn/feed/0Doug Llewellyn (@DougLlewellyn) is President & Chief Operating Officer, at Purch. He is responsible for the company s three core business units, strategic planning, corporate development activities, and Purch s business metrics and operational framework. In this episode, Doug discusses how different web properties at Purch serve audiences with content and information enabling better and more informed [...]NoNo23:13Scott Kingcontent marketing, digital marketing, marketplaces, metricsGrowth Marketing is Not a Hack – Eddie Yoonhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-marketing-is-not-a-hack-eddie-yoon/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-marketing-is-not-a-hack-eddie-yoon/#respondThu, 07 Sep 2017 13:00:03 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3331Eddie Yoon (@eddiewouldgrow) is a personal think tank and advisor on growth strategies. He learned and cultivated his craft at The Cambridge Group where he worked for 18 years teaching CEOs and senior leadership teams within Fortune 1000 corporations how drive growth by understanding how to methodically unlock new sources of consumer demand. Eddie is widely recognized as one of the world s leading experts on Category Growth, Category Creation and Superconsumers highly passionate and profitable customers who are intensely invested in a company s category.

In this episode Eddie describes how companies often choose the wrong growth path containing more than the required obstacles. He explains how to measure growth and how looking in different areas could enable you to capture adjacent markets and grow faster than competing head to head.

Eddie sums up the conversation and talks of his personal scorecard to evaluate growth marketing campaigns he has worked on like iRobot, American Girl and Sara Lee.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-marketing-is-not-a-hack-eddie-yoon/feed/0Eddie Yoon (@eddiewouldgrow) is a personal think tank and advisor on growth strategies. He learned and cultivated his craft at The Cambridge Group where he worked for 18 years teaching CEOs and senior leadership teams within Fortune 1000 corporations how drive growth by understanding how to methodically unlock new sources of consumer demand. Eddie is [...]NoNo41:20Scott Kinggrowth hacking, metricsHow to Optimize Lead Acquisition – Shanik Patelhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-optimize-lead-acquisition-shanik-patel/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-optimize-lead-acquisition-shanik-patel/#respondThu, 31 Aug 2017 13:00:55 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3305Shanik Patel (@Grammarly) is the Head of Acquisition at Grammarly. Grammarly helps you write mistake-free on Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and nearly anywhere else you write on the web.

In this episode, Shanik talks about four years work of acquisition campaigns using channels like Search, Display, Facebook, Affiliate, YouTube, Sponsored Content, and TV. In each case, he had to do it with a strict focus on ROI and making data driven feedback loops to make the best decisions. Grammarly was a bootstrapped startup until recently so Shanik has seen ad spend grow from a few hundred thousand dollars per month to several million dollars per month, while maintaining the same level of profitability.

Questions During Episode

What is a head of Acquisition?

Why should people use Grammarly?

How do you see digital marketing or digital experiences evolving?

Where are you looking for competitive advantages in acquisition?

What type of data driven decisions are you making?

What reports or data points or KPIs do you monitor in order to optimize?

What was one of your most successful campaigns?

What made it effective and how did you measure that?

Did you take what you learned from the YouTube ads and feed that back in other campaigns?

What is something you did for a campaign, initiative or ecosystem that was a long shot but ended up working out?

What is your most proud accomplishment?

How has your knowledge of finance and trading helped you in marketing?

Contact Shanik

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-optimize-lead-acquisition-shanik-patel/feed/0Shanik Patel (@Grammarly) is the Head of Acquisition at Grammarly. Grammarly helps you write mistake-free on Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and nearly anywhere else you write on the web. In this episode, Shanik talks about four years work of acquisition campaigns using channels like Search, Display, Facebook, Affiliate, YouTube, Sponsored Content, and TV. In each [...]NoNo34:08Scott Kingagile marketing, data driven decisionsSimplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication – Alan Siegelhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/simplicity-is-the-ultimate-sophistication-alan-siegel/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/simplicity-is-the-ultimate-sophistication-alan-siegel/#respondThu, 24 Aug 2017 13:00:35 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3297Alan Siegel (@siegelvision) is the CEO and Founder at Siegelvision and Chairman Emeritus at Siegel + Gale. Alan has spent much of his life working on over 300 campaigns simplifying for the sake of clarity. His accomplishments include creating new credit documents for Citibank, simplifying the 1040EZ form and creating the current NBA logo.

In this episode, Alan describes how brands need to embrace simplicity on new media formats and channels to engage their audiences. He elaborates on why transforming to these new digital media channels from traditional marketing is a company s biggest challenge and will continue to cause high turnover among top marketers. Alan then explains why marketing directors need to grab the customer journey and be the glue that binds the customer experience to create consistency across all platforms.

Marketing directors have to be the glue of the customer experience and get rid of the complexity.

Alan provides impressive statistics emerging from his work at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. John Jay years ago transformed itself from a cop college, to an institution of higher learning to become a fierce advocate of justice and remains one of the top colleges in the country. Alan then finishes the conversation talking about his design of the NBA logo, his work at the American Theater Wing and the Tony Awards.

Questions During Podcast

What are you working on today and the rest of the year?

What goals do the educational and medical organizations you are working with work to achieve.

When do these organizations realize they need help?

Would your work at John Jay College translate into other educational institutions?

How would you measure the impact of the branding exercise?

How long did it take for all of these changes?

What is the common denominator in successful branding programs?

What happens with the brand when the chief advocate leaves the company?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/simplicity-is-the-ultimate-sophistication-alan-siegel/feed/0Alan Siegel (@siegelvision) is the CEO and Founder at Siegelvision and Chairman Emeritus at Siegel + Gale. Alan has spent much of his life working on over 300 campaigns simplifying for the sake of clarity. His accomplishments include creating new credit documents for Citibank, simplifying the 1040EZ form and creating the current NBA logo. In this episode, [...]NoNo51:06Scott Kingbranding, simplicityHow to Relaunch a Global Brand – Josh Londonhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-relaunch-a-global-brand-josh-london/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-relaunch-a-global-brand-josh-london/#respondThu, 17 Aug 2017 13:00:27 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3281Josh London (@joshdlondon) is the first ever CMO for IDG. IDG is the worlds largest media and technology service company with hundreds of properties in 147 countries. It s mission is to enable a global audience make the smartest technology purchase decisions through it s various web properties like Computerworld, InfoWorld, CIO, and CSO.

In this episode, Josh talks about why he was brought on board and how IDG realigned itself into central functions from silos in order become more efficient and to create economies of scale. Josh describes some of the exercises IDG performed for the relaunch like custom research, customer outreach and internal communication. He then provides some details of how he converged the marketing stack and how his organization measures success.

Josh concludes the interview talking about his own CMO interview series, IDG CMO Perspectives. Josh talks to CMOs on how they are driving growth for their companies and has found after talking with them that many companies have the same issues but in their own distinct markets. Enjoy ..

Questions During Episode

What is IDG and what does IDG do?

How has IDG s go to market strategy changed over the years?

What did you see as a realignment opportunity when you came in as CMO?

How many times in your brand research did you hear individual employees named?

What the most successful part of the relaunch?

How did you measure the brand relaunch?

Are you changing anything in marketing at IDG right now?

How many people work in marketing at IDG?

What is the sales organization s opinion of the rebranding effort?

Do you perform direct outreach to the CMOs in the video series?

What do you talk to your CMO customers about?

How do you contact the other CMOs you want to talk with?

What do you do with your free time?

Links and Mentions

Contact Josh

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-relaunch-a-global-brand-josh-london/feed/0Josh London (@joshdlondon) is the first ever CMO for IDG. IDG is the worlds largest media and technology service company with hundreds of properties in 147 countries. It s mission is to enable a global audience make the smartest technology purchase decisions through it s various web properties like Computerworld, InfoWorld, CIO, and CSO. In this episode, Josh [...]NoNo30:31Scott Kingbranding, strategyDigital Marketing is Dead – Tim Hugheshttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/digital-marketing-is-dead-tim-hughes/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/digital-marketing-is-dead-tim-hughes/#respondThu, 10 Aug 2017 13:00:07 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3268Tim Hughes (@Timothy_Hughes) is the CEO at Digital Leadership Associates providing social media consultancy for businesses. Tim helps organizations at the C-Level build new business by creating social selling programs. Tim s programs engage several departments at these companies and creates goals for each in order to change behavior for more effective habits using social media.

I can get higher in an organization using social than emailing or cold calling – @Timothy_Hughes [Click to Tweet]

In this episode, Tim and I talk about how digital marketing is being blocked by our short attention spans and ad blockers. Tim goes on further to state, digital marketing is dead , since fewer people pay attention to ad and messages pushed out from brands. Tim goes on further to describe what is in his 12-week social selling class and provides some case studies on how he got into big account plus how a CEO used social selling on him.

Salespeople should have a personal brand that states how they are going to help [Click to Tweet]

Questions During Episode

What does Digital Leadership Associates do for social?

How do you describe social selling?

How do you recommend people remain visible until the timing is right for the prospect or customer?

What is your view on what a salesperson should have on their LinkedIn profile?

Digital marketing is ramping up not down. Why do you think it is dead?

If companies are looking into digital marketing, could they skip a step and go straight to social selling?

If a sales guy can only control his own actions why do they depend on so many other factors like digital marketing?

If all solutions solve a problem how do you recommend sales people break through all of the digital noise?

How much time should a sales guy spend on LinkedIn and Twitter? Or social media for that matter.

Contact Tim

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/digital-marketing-is-dead-tim-hughes/feed/0Tim Hughes (@Timothy_Hughes) is the CEO at Digital Leadership Associates providing social media consultancy for businesses. Tim helps organizations at the C-Level build new business by creating social selling programs. Tim s programs engage several departments at these companies and creates goals for each in order to change behavior for more effective habits using social media. [...]NoNo32:26Scott Kingsocial sellingPodcast ROI – Tom Schwabhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/podcast-roi-tom-schwab/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/podcast-roi-tom-schwab/#respondThu, 03 Aug 2017 13:00:12 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3255Tom Schwab (@TMSchwab) is the Chief Evangelist at Interview Valet where he helps authors and influencers speak on established podcasts. Tom and his team found The Scott King Show and have suggested several marketing practitioners and CMOs that I ll have on in the future. Tom was gracious enough to come on this show and talk about the podcasting ecosystem and how marketers are using this tactic in their content marketing mix.

In this episode, Tom talks about podcast ROI, why podcasts are so effective and provides some examples of how marketers are using podcasts to increase conversion rates for leads and new business. He provides statistics on how many people are listening to podcasts, the benefits of podcasts and some of the pitfalls show hosts suffer from.

If you are considering starting a podcast, this is a must listen. Tom gives us several pros and cons for starting a podcast and talks about how being a guest on established shows like this one can significantly increase your exposure with minimal effort.

Be a guest on an established podcast instead of starting your own [Click to Tweet]

Questions During Episode

What does Interview Valet do?

How do people find you?

Where is podcasting heading?

What is the feedback your customers have given you?

Is everyone going to do a podcast?

If I am an inbound marketer and want get leads, should I start a podcast?

Contact Tom

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/podcast-roi-tom-schwab/feed/0Tom Schwab (@TMSchwab) is the Chief Evangelist at Interview Valet where he helps authors and influencers speak on established podcasts. Tom and his team found The Scott King Show and have suggested several marketing practitioners and CMOs that I ll have on in the future. Tom was gracious enough to come on this show and talk [...]NoNo28:07Scott KingPodcast Checklist, Podcast ROIThe Biggest Marketing Challenge – Ryan Shelleyhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/the-biggest-marketing-challenge-ryan-shelley/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/the-biggest-marketing-challenge-ryan-shelley/#respondThu, 27 Jul 2017 13:00:49 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3245Ryan Shelley (@ryan_shelley) is a self proclaimed conversion junkie. He helps new and established companies get the most of SEO and lead conversions for all types of products and services. Ryan hails from Melbourne, Florida and has found an interesting niche amongst engineering firms fueling public and private space programs.

In this episode, Ryan and I discuss what he perceives as the biggest marketing challenge and how to over come it with some simple steps. Ryan explains some of his personal habits and provides actionable advice on how to become more efficient, reduce noise and to be ultra productive in order to make time for physical well being. Ryan then offers his practice of how he gets ready for the day by getting mobile, relaxing and meditating in order to get more out of his day.

Questions During Episode

What is your day to day look like?

Any habits that benefit you every day?

What do you consider the biggest challenge for on-line marketers today?

How do web and search teams need to address these challenges?

What do people ask your advice on?

What is one tool or service your team depends on more than the others?

Why does it perform better than others?

How do you see digital marketing or digital experiences evolving?

What type of data driven decisions are you making?

What reports or data points or KPIs do you monitor in order to optimize?

What was one of your most successful campaigns? What made it effective and how did you measure that?

Describe a time when a project you were overseeing did not go well?

What did you learn from that and how do you avoid that from happening again?

If you didn t have any responsibilities at home or work next week what would you do with your time?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/the-biggest-marketing-challenge-ryan-shelley/feed/0Ryan Shelley (@ryan_shelley) is a self proclaimed conversion junkie. He helps new and established companies get the most of SEO and lead conversions for all types of products and services. Ryan hails from Melbourne, Florida and has found an interesting niche amongst engineering firms fueling public and private space programs. In this episode, Ryan and [...]NoNo33:27Scott Kingdata driven decisions, hubspot, trendemonLinkedIn CMO Network Q & A with Sean Sheppardhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/linkedin-cmo-network-q-a-sean-sheppard/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/linkedin-cmo-network-q-a-sean-sheppard/#respondThu, 20 Jul 2017 13:00:59 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3233Sean Sheppard (@seanasheppard) co-founded GrowthX Academy. GrowthX Academy trains individuals who want to transition into a career in Sales and Business Development, Growth Marketing or UX Design.

Sean Sheppard is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully grown dozens of early-stage companies across a wide variety of products and markets.

At GrowthX Academy, Sean is focusing on sharing his expertise in monitoring and adjusting revenue pipelines to help startups improve the probability and predictability of sales and marketing success.

In this episode Sean and I sought interesting questions from LinkedIn’s Chief Marketing Officer CMO Network – #1 Group for CMOs that were previously unanswered. We talk about the questions and provided answers via this podcast. We are very curious how the experiment will turn out and would like feedback on if it was helpful.

Contact Sean

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/linkedin-cmo-network-q-a-sean-sheppard/feed/0Sean Sheppard (@seanasheppard) co-founded GrowthX Academy. GrowthX Academy trains individuals who want to transition into a career in Sales and Business Development, Growth Marketing or UX Design. Sean Sheppard is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully grown dozens of early-stage companies across a wide variety of products and markets. At GrowthX Academy, Sean is focusing on [...]NoNo39:30Scott KingAI, bots, webinarThe Challenges of Being a CMO – Kimberly A. Whitlerhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/trouble-cmos-kim-whitler/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/trouble-cmos-kim-whitler/#commentsThu, 13 Jul 2017 13:00:59 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3223Assistant Professor Kimberly A. Whitler (@KimWhitler) recently released The Trouble with CMOs in Harvard Business Review. The article summarizes years of analysis on CMOs job descriptions, educations and how expectations rarely align to their actual job responsibilities.

80% of CEOs are unhappy with the CMO and 74% of CMOs say they could have a greater impact [Click to Tweet]

In this episode, Kim and I discuss some of the data in her article and feedback she has received following its release. Kim also shares her personal story of how she helped realign her CMO job once she realized the odds were against her success while running marketing. Kim discusses why the CMO role is perceived as the walk on water role and offers advice on how to rectify the situation.

I had been looking forward to this interview for months and am really happy to provide you with this episode. Please enjoy and engage in the discussion.

Questions During Episode

What has happened since the article was published?

Who would possibly not like the article on why the CMO job is so difficult?

80% of CEOs are unhappy with the CMO and 74% of CMOs say they could have a greater impact. Why the mismatch?

Why is there a big disconnect between the expectations of the CMOs and their responsibilities?

How do we fix this? How long will it take?

How can we guide CEOs to design the job requirements correctly and get the right person for the job?

CMOs have the shortest average tenure at 4.1 years according to the Korn Ferry numbers in your report.

Is this because the CMO job is relatively new or that there is indeed higher turnover?

Why is the CMO role considered the water walking job?

Why do you believe the CMO job is so difficult?

You influenced the CMO redesign at one of your last jobs. How far into your job were you when you realized the problem?

How long did it take you to fix it?

What advice do you have for CMO candidates when finding their next role?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/trouble-cmos-kim-whitler/feed/1Assistant Professor Kimberly A. Whitler (@KimWhitler) recently released The Trouble with CMOs in Harvard Business Review. The article summarizes years of analysis on CMOs job descriptions, educations and how expectations rarely align to their actual job responsibilities. 80% of CEOs are unhappy with the CMO and 74% of CMOs say they could have a greater [...]NoNo38:32Scott KingCMO, cmo interview, HBRComplexity is the CMOs Biggest Issue – Margaret Molloyhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/complexity-is-the-cmos-biggest-issue-margaret-molloy/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/complexity-is-the-cmos-biggest-issue-margaret-molloy/#respondThu, 06 Jul 2017 13:00:36 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3205Margaret Molloy (@MargaretMolloy) is the global chief marketing officer at Siegel+Gale, a renowned strategic branding and design firm. She oversees new business, sales and marketing and is one of the most visible CMOs on social media.

In this episode, Margaret and I talk about how branding has evolved from words and pictures to managing experiences. Brands no longer control the story but can influence the conversation by shifting focus to influencers. She then talks about how complexity is the most difficult thing for CMOs to handle and how successful marketers are simplifying their businesses and customer journeys to prioritize effectively. Margaret then offers six questions to determine if your brand is simple or complex so you can prioritize effectively when gaining new customers.

How to determine if your organization is Simple or complex

Is senior leadership committed to a simpler customer experience?

Does every employee know what the brand purpose is and can they articulate it?

Have we made innovation at our company as simple as possible?

Are our marketing messages in sync with the customer experience?

Do we understand the customer’s complete journey and offer simplicity at every stage?

Are we focusing on being useful?

Questions During Episode

What do you consider the biggest challenge for CMOs today?

How do executive teams need to address these challenges?

Siegel+Gale has been around for almost 50 years, how has the world of branding evolved?

What is your approach to market research?

What are the top takeaways from your 2017 Global Brand Simplicity Index?

What can brands learn from emerging disruptive brands?

What was one of your most successful campaigns?

What made it effective and how did you measure that?

What is your most proud accomplishment?

Describe a time when a project you were overseeing did not go well?

What did you learn from that and how do you avoid that from happening again?

Contact Margaret

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/complexity-is-the-cmos-biggest-issue-margaret-molloy/feed/0Margaret Molloy (@MargaretMolloy) is the global chief marketing officer at Siegel+Gale, a renowned strategic branding and design firm. She oversees new business, sales and marketing and is one of the most visible CMOs on social media. In this episode, Margaret and I talk about how branding has evolved from words and pictures to managing experiences. [...]NoNo39:49Scott KingReverse Engineering Red Bull Marketing – Rebecca Shinehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/reverse-engineering-red-bull-marketing-rebecca-shine/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/reverse-engineering-red-bull-marketing-rebecca-shine/#respondThu, 29 Jun 2017 13:00:07 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3197It all started back in London. For the best part of ten years Rebecca Shine was immersed in what was to become one of the strongest lifestyle brands and products of our time; Red Bull. Her time with this hedonistic energy drink, synonymous with extreme sports and late night escapades, was a thrilling rollercoaster ride with a highly charged team; fully fueled with fun, boundless creativity, and a passion to make stuff happen, fast.

In this episode I talk with Rebecca how Red Bull marketing teams learned to control the brand elements and maintain a consistent message. Her lessons learned there formulated a brand process and checklist she takes her clients through when building brands. She has great advice on how maintain consistency when brands lack the type of control they used to have.

Questions During Episode

You spent many years at Red Bull. Everyone has heard of Red Bull event if they never had one. What was it like there as it ramped up?

You obviously learned a great deal there and can help others do the same. Did you walk away with a checklist or plan that is easily implemented?

Every business owner can answer these questions. Why isn t there more of this control with businesses and brands?

If you were at dinner with 4 brand owners what would you tell them to do?

Where do you go or what do you read to inspire you?

What do you do for fun and how to you make time to do that?

Contact Rebecca

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/reverse-engineering-red-bull-marketing-rebecca-shine/feed/0It all started back in London. For the best part of ten years Rebecca Shine was immersed in what was to become one of the strongest lifestyle brands and products of our time; Red Bull. Her time with this hedonistic energy drink, synonymous with extreme sports and late night escapades, was a thrilling rollercoaster ride with a [...]NoNo34:10Scott KingRed BullHow to Hire Digital Marketing Experts – Connor Gillivanhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-hire-digital-marketing-experts-connor-gillivan/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-hire-digital-marketing-experts-connor-gillivan/#respondThu, 22 Jun 2017 13:00:00 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3187Connor Gillivan is a serial entrepreneur and an expert in eCommerce and online hiring. He co-founded his first eCommerce company out of his dorm room in 2009 and scaled it to sell over $20 million on the Amazon Marketplace. As the business grew, Connor started outsourcing many operations to contractors and became an expert at hiring online.

In 2015, Connor and Nathan Hirsch created FreeeUp, an online hiring marketplace specialized for the eCommerce and digital marketing industries. FreeeUp provides a better way to hire reliable remote workers without having to spend hours upfront recruiting and interviewing. Today, FreeeUp serves over 2,000 online businesses and is rapidly becoming a favorite destination to hire online.

In this episode, I talk with Connor about how he runs marketing at FreeeUp and what tools and processes he uses to build his business, recruit job seekers and find those looking to hire on-line marketers.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-hire-digital-marketing-experts-connor-gillivan/feed/0Connor Gillivan is a serial entrepreneur and an expert in eCommerce and online hiring. He co-founded his first eCommerce company out of his dorm room in 2009 and scaled it to sell over $20 million on the Amazon Marketplace. As the business grew, Connor started outsourcing many operations to contractors and became an expert at hiring [...]NoNo33:51Scott KingahrefsHow to Hire an Expert – Nikki Pechethttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-hire-an-expert-nikki-pechet/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-hire-an-expert-nikki-pechet/#respondThu, 15 Jun 2017 13:00:01 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3175Nikki Pechet offers expert advice on marketing and recruiting and sometimes seeks expert advice with her own home improvement needs. She leads marketing at Thumbtack where millions of customers and over 250,000 paying professionals per quarter use the Thumbtack marketplace to complete projects all over the country. Thumbtack provides a platform for professionals to find work and build their businesses on the backs of sales and marketing experts.

In this episode, Nikki explains how she landed at Thumbtack and how she recruits others to join in on the fun helping trade professionals stay productive. Nikki tells the story of how she networked into her current VP Marketing role by using an easy to follow process taught to her at a very young age by her mother. Nikki s mother is a continuous learner but lacked resources to fulfill her desires. Not letting that slow her down, her mother simply asked experts to explain concepts and procedures at the experts expense and own time simply by asking. If you want to know about holograms, just ask staff at the University of Minnesota to explain it to you.

This episode is full of energy and Nikki has some great advice that is easy to follow on how to hire an expert. About 15 minutes in there, is some interference in the internet traffic but it only lasts for a few seconds. Hang on with us.

Enjoy.

Questions During Episode:

What is Thumbtack?

Does your marketing you primarily focus on the practitioner or the end customer?

Why did you chose Thumbtack and what makes the company an interesting place for marketing?

What excites you most about Thumbtack?

How did you establish your connections in your close circle?

What did your mom do? What she a professional or homemaker?

What are your plans for the future?

What lessons have you learned from your previous experience that have been valuable as a leading marketer at a growing startup?

What s next for Thumbtack?

How are you building you team?

How do you know your recruit is the right person for the job? Work product? Passion?

Do you have a favorite brand you try to mimic?

Which competitors are in your rearview mirror and which are in your windshield?

Contact Nikki

Full Transcription Follows

Scott: Hi, Nikki, welcome to the show. Thanks a lot for joining me.

Nikki: Thanks so much for having me.

Scott: Today expert guest is Nikki Pechet and Nikki is the VP of Marketing over at Thumbtack and I haven’t heard a thumbtack before so Nikki, what is Thumbtack? It looks to be some type of broker website for home improvement or something like that and I’m interested because I’m about to do a whole lot of improvement on my home so maybe you can help me.

Nikki: We are about to change your life, Scott. Thumbtack is the easiest place to find local professionals for anything you need to get done. So home categories are great examples, plumbers, painters, electricians, handyman, general contractors but we also have events categories so we’re the best place in the world to find a wedding officiate, photographer, a DJ. We have a bunch of personal categories, if you’re looking to get fit we have wonderful personal trainers, masseuses and we also have every lesson under the sun. So if you’re looking to polish up your Swahili or take piano lessons we can help you find a pro for anything on your list.

Scott: Okay. So it’s really for me to hire a professional.

Nikki: That’s exactly right.

Scott: Okay.

Nikki: You come to Thumbtack, we’re both an app and a website, tell us what you need done and we’ll ask you all the questions that we need to get the right information so that we can find the right professional for whatever your job is.

Scott: You know, that’s actually pretty interesting because a lot of my past guests have been helping creative people either market their services or find new jobs or whatever and these are people that are practitioners. And they’re not really attuned to the latest in digital marketing so you’re kind of fulfilling that need for all these professionals that like they just want to work and get projects and you’re helping them with gaining more business so that’s pretty cool.

Nikki: That’s exactly right. We work with an incredible set of professionals. Today we have over 250,000 professionals who pay us every quarter and these are people who typically aren’t spending money elsewhere on digital marketing or really on marketing anything and so it is a way for really talented skilled professionals who have limited networks and limited abilities to find customers to trade their skills and their time for money that can become a sustenance for their family on a schedule that works for them.

Scott: That’s pretty cool. So obviously, you guys, do sales and marketing yourselves is, are you primarily trying to get the practitioners or are you trying to get the jobs for them? How does that work?

Nikki: Yes, so we’re a marketplace so we’re trying to do both of those things. I think the biggest challenge that we face is generally on the supply side of finding enough qualified professionals for every customer request that we get. At some point I’m sure we’ll feel more constrained on the customer side but today and I would imagine for at least the next couple of years finding really high-quality professionals who are engaged ready to help customers in over a thousand different categories and in every county across the US, that’s the challenge we’re really focused on right now.

Scott: So do you have a podcast category? Can I find work doing podcast for people?

Nikki: I don’t think we have that category but that’s a good one to look into, I think we could have it.

Scott: I’d love to be the first one, okay?

Nikki: [laughs] Get that.

Scott: All right, cool. So you’ve been over there for a year in some change, why did you choose Thumbtack? What made it a great company to go to?

Nikki: Yes so I’ve actually been here for about two and a half years and which in the real world I think is not very long but in the life of a Silicon Valley relatively early stage company, actually feels like eons so before Thumbtack, I start my career in marketing at Pepsi where I did really traditional brand marketing. And then I went and spent almost a decade at Bain, the large strategy consulting firm doing “go to market strategy” across consumer retail and consumer technology companies and ended up wanting to find something that felt as fun as my time at Pepsi but also felt like it was having a really big impact in the world and I spent time –while I was actually on maternity leave with my first son — talking to over 100 different people about the companies they were working on and spend a lot of time with investors finding out which companies in your portfolio are you the most excited about and why? And trying to find a company that I was really excited about and I also felt like I could really help. And so came across Marco, who’s our CEO and founder, because I was talking to an angel investor friend of mine about a bunch of CEOs I’d met who, I’d honestly just wasn’t that impressed with, even when I really like their company and I said, “I want to find a CEO who I think can be an incredible partner and who will value the skills that I have.” And he said, “You got to meet Marco, he’s one of the best CEOs I have ever invested in.” And I met Marco, at that time I have not heard of Thumbtack which I thought was to be surprising because I do tons of home renovation and so I went in a little skeptical, met Marco heard a little bit of his story and the story of how the company was founded and the amount of progress that the company had made in a huge market. It’s about a seven hundred billion-dollar-market in the US alone and walked away from that meeting thinking I absolutely must work at this company both because of whom Marco is as a leader and because of both the opportunity that Thumbtack has in front of it, one of the biggest markets that exist and is over half still transacted entirely offline and the progress of the company has made more progress than basically anybody else and it’s based in making global services accessible to customers and helping professionals across a thousand categories build their businesses. So I loved what the company did for people like me. I was a new mom trying to renovate a super old house that felt like it was breaking all the time and that was really why I joined as I got into Thumbtack a little further and started meeting some of our professionals, I realize the real magic of Thumbtack is in what it does for professionals, giving people the opportunity to build the business that they want on their terms using the incredible skills that they have to build companies and to employ people all over the country.

Scott: I mean, you sound really excited about it. That’s really, really cool and I’m really interested in the opportunity that you had to have all those conversations, of talking about, talking to different CEOs and angel investors and that’s a really interesting circle. Did you get into that circle from your time at Bain or how did that work?

Nikki: So I have just sort of this belief that I think my mom instilled in me that if you ever want to know something, you should just find the person who knows it and ask them to tell you about it. I remember being in third grade and she was really interested in holograms and found this professor at the University of Minnesota, which is where I grew up, who is specializing in hologram creation and she told them that she really needed to learn about it and her kids did too and so she took my sister and I, we’re like, I don’t know, 8 years old at that time and we have spend an entire day in a hologram lab learning about it which is just that’s exactly how my mom rolls. And so I think she just taught me like, “If you need to know something you just go to the people who know it and ask and have absolutely no fear that they might turn you down for a meeting.” And I’ve found that to be entirely true throughout my career. I believe in being super well-prepared and being really polite and asking for as little time as possible and in always trying to find something that you can do to give back to people who help you whether it’s offering to help people recruit or offering to help do research on something that somebody needs to know about but in general I’m quite willing to ask for meetings with people who I frankly have no business meeting with, and so that was really how it started. I would say my Bain network is an awesome network of people but does not actually include all that many early stage company and so I did start with my Bain network and talk to CMO’s and CEOs of lots of really incredible companies but I ended up wanting to do something earlier stage and didn’t have a strong network of people in the earlier stage community so I just emailed people who knew people who knew people and begged them to introduce me and it’s interesting how I think the Silicon Valley community, in particular, is that I found it to be incredibly welcoming and I would have a great meeting with someone and then I would immediately follow up and say, “Who are the three best people who you know who might be willing to spend 15 minutes with me?” I generally would ask for 15 minutes and hope that I would end up with an hour but be very happy if I only got 15 minutes. So I did that and it builds on itself and as you ask for meetings and people say “yes” and then you have great meetings and it turns out that they also enjoyed meeting with you — hopefully in most cases — it just kinda builds on itself and you meet more and more interesting people. I also found that my network from my early days of Pepsi actually have a lot of really awesome former colleagues from there who’ve gone on to do some interesting things. My network of people from business school who’ve gone on to do really interesting things all around the world and my network of people from Bain, were actually quite helpful and continue to be helpful to people who are in Silicon Valley who aren’t connected to those networks but do have really deep connections within Tack and so I try to do as much introducing people to each other and connecting people who might not find each other as possible. And that also helps make those kind of meetings happen.

Scott: I mean, that’s incredibly insightful on your mom’s part. What did she do? Is she a professional or is a homemaker or why did she have you do that?

Nikki: So my mom grew up just extremely poor in rural Minnesota. She was one of 10 children and her dad was a gas station attendant and made minimum wage so they had absolutely no money and no access to particularly great education so all of her brothers and sisters did end up going to University of Minnesota and all got degrees but she has this life-long sort of chip on her shoulder about feeling like she didn’t get exposed to things as a kid because they didn’t have any money, they never traveled, they didn’t go to fancy schools and so she was a homemaker and like the world’s best mom, when I was a kid and really viewed my childhood as a chance for her to have a second childhood and learn all the things that she didn’t get to learn when she was a kid. I now have kids who, I think have significantly more privileged than my mom had growing up and I still think everything that my mom exposed us to as kids is something that even the most privileged kids today don’t get exposed to but I spent every afternoon, I’d come home and we would do a science project or she’d have some sort of a building something challenge that she would make us do. We spent summers driving around Minnesota sneaking into rock quarries where we would dig for fossils. She just– we had a really interesting time learning about all the things that she wanted to know.

Scott: That’s incredible. I mean that’s a lesson all into itself in terms of how to create your own opportunity and I mean it sounds like what you learned as a kid basically, you know, it got you into Thumbtack, right? Because you just kept asking questions and you kept asking for meetings and you got to a spot that like you sound extraordinarily excited about so I mean that’s a success story in itself, podcast over almost, but that’s really, really cool. I kind of have the same type of history — but this isn’t about me, that’s in the future — but speaking of the future, what are your plans for Thumbtack? I mean since you’ve been there you’ve got your feet completely under you and you’re moving and shaking, you grow in the marketplace, how does your time at Bain and Pepsi and in all your previous experience, what are you going to bring and what are you going to change at Thumbtack?

Nikki: Yes, so one of the things that I think is most fun about working in any technology company in marketing but at Thumbtack, specifically, is that marketing as a function within companies has just entirely changed over my career. What I did at Pepsi which was when I was there, cutting edge brand marketing versus what the sort of the best in class marketers are doing today is entirely different. And I think a lot about what prepared me for the team that I’m leading today and the things the things that I need to get done and I think the DNA of deeply caring about a brand understanding who your customers are and exactly what they want and then over delivering on their the greatest best brand like that’s what Pepsi was all about. It was about taking something that was, a sugar water and creating things value that made people desperately want to get it and so that DNA of brand storytelling combined with what I learned at Bain which was like deep analytics and logic so figuring out what the objective was and then analytically understanding how you could get to a desired outcome, setting up really rigorous tests and making sure that you were doing the best possible thing that you could do to get there. That combination has been really powerful for me and I think the best marketer is certainly in Silicon Valley and I would say more broadly have that combination of storytelling and brand expertise but also a deep understanding and appreciation for performance and measurability. And so that I would say is the most interesting thing about being in marketing today and it continues to evolve pretty quickly which makes it a fun job to continue to evolve in over my career.

Scott: Yeah, I think marketing I have a skewed view but it evolve so fast and there’s new tools and techniques that, that pop up so quickly, you continuously have to pay attention on what’s going on around you otherwise you just become irrelevant and I think that makes it fun in itself and you get to meet interesting people, right? So interesting people, how are you building your team? Are these people that you know? Are these people that cold call you like you cold call everybody else or how does that work?

Nikki: I don’t think I’ve hired anybody who’ve cold called me. My general approach to recruiting is figure out exactly what we need as a company in the next 6 to 12 months and be ruthless about making sure we are only building the teams that we absolutely need and making sure that we’re only building teams that we have the entire executive team and rest of the organization where they bought into. And then once I figured out what I think we need I just try to go find the best people in the world doing that thing and I generally believe in finding one or two people who, you are sure are the best people to do it and then just wearing them down over the course of many, many months to recruit them to come. So I’ve hired a couple of people who I think are just world class at the things they do. Most recently our creative director, Matteo Vianello, who came from Nest. Tony Fadell hired him as one of the early creative talents to build the Nest thermostat brand. He built that brand from nothing into the company that it was, sold it to Google and I spent many, many months helping him understand why he should take a massive pay cut and leave his large team and enormous budgets to come to Thumbtack and build the creative team within marketing from scratch and he has been here for a few months and he has done and incredible job and I think it’s just a good example of, “Find somebody who thinks that they would never take the job that you want them to take, know that they are the right person to do that job and then sell aggressively until they take it.”

Scott: So how do you know that they’re the right person to take the job or you just looking at the past performance? Like, well, the Nest example, that’s an easy one but for instance, someone else that maybe didn’t have that, a big bang acquisition like Nest, what are you really look for? Is it more of a work product? Is it more of a passion? Is it more of a energy level like yours or what primarily do you think you look for?

Nikki: Yes, that’s a great question. I think it’s a combination of all of them. And I would say anytime I’m hiring for someone new I go out and try to find the people who were just killing it in that function and try to understand. I spent a lot of time before we hired a creative director talking to Google about their brand studio and talking to Facebook about the Facebook Factory which is their design team within marketing and trying to understand like who are the people who have been just wildly successful in these roles and where do they come from and why were they successful and many of them were people who came — Andy Berndt, who’s the head of the marketing design team at Google who’s just an absolute creative genius — he came from an agency and when David Lawee who was the head of marketing when he, when Andy joined, when he hired Andy he knew he was taking a really big risk on an agency person who haven’t been in the house before and he was very thoughtful about the specific things that he needed to know about Andy before he made that bet and Andy’s has been wildly successful at Google and so spending time with David Lawee and talking to Andy, I’m trying to understand what was it that made you confident that he was going to be great and so talking to people who are really incredible at the thing you need them to do, understanding what their path was and trying to pattern match that and so, yeah, Matteo is a good example of somebody who had just absolutely killed it and Nest which is one of the companies he worked at. I think, a big risk that I was worried about with Matteo was Nest from Day 1 was a company that was very brand first, willing to invest and making the brand looked and feel a certain way because the entire differentiation was, “We’re going to make a product that is a very very expensive version of the existing products on the market and yes the product is better but if the brand wasn’t there to support it, it never would’ve worked.” Thumbtack is actually really different in that way, like Thumbtack, for free, finds customers the right professional for a job that they need done in a way that nothing else in the world can do for them and so it solves such a dire need for customers that we actually need less of those sort of magical brand experience in order to grow really fast or in order to sort of build towards the opportunity that we’re focused on. Now that doesn’t mean that we do not want to invest in brand but it means that, the way we invest in brand is different and it’s much more about the product experience and the consistency of what were delivering and so, in that way, I think Matteo was a little bit of a bet because what I needed him to do here is really different from what he did at Nest and so I spend a ton of time talking to him about specifically what he would do here. What team he would build, what budget he would want, how he imagined things evolving over time and that’s also something I spend a lot of time doing when I was interviewed for jobs, was making sure that whoever I was going to be reporting to in this case talking to Marco about exactly what I would want to accomplish and what team I would need, and what budget I would need, what my approach would be and how I imagine spending my time just to make sure if there were things that I had in my head that were not quite right. We figured those things out early and so that’s something with all senior hires. I spend quite a bit of time work planning and at least the lining on here’s the first six months will look like so that nobody is surprised once they’re actually in the building.

Scott: That’s really cool. I like that story. What, you know, you talked about brand quite a bit. Is there– do you have a favorite brand like outside of Nest because you sound like you worked there too because you love it so much and that’s cool.

Nikki: I love Nest.

Scott: Is there– do you have Nest in your house?

Nikki: I do have a Nest in my house. Installed it myself.

Scott: You didn’t hire anybody from Thumbtack to do that?’

Nikki: I am a big — I love doing stuff myself which actually is there’s a lot of people on Thumbtack who hire a pro to sort help finished jobs or to help to get the job started but a lot of our best customers really liked to be involved in doing jobs and I am certainly that way.

Scott: Do you have a favorite brand that you try to mimic other than Nest and anybody out there that you like?

Nikki: For Thumbtack or for just brands that I like in general?

Scott: Just things that you like and then we’ll move on to Thumbtack.

Nikki: Yeah, so there’s a lot of brands I like, Nest is certainly one of them. I would say, I think Facebook is a really good example of a brand that grew out of a product experience and for a long time, didn’t think at all about investing in brand and over time sort of realize the impact they were having on the world. And started investing in brand more as a way to sort of be responsible and think about, “You know because we’re having this huge impact on the world we need to be delivering an experience and delivering on a promise to our customers around privacy and around sharing that is consistent with the impact that we want to have on the world.” I think that’s a really interesting sort of organic one. I think Amazon is a really interesting brand because they haven’t invested in brand, in kind of the typical way that a Nest or a Nike or a Pepsi would but again they’ve invested in operations and in the product experience and in pricing to deliver on customer expectations. I mean customers didn’t even have any of the expectations that Amazon has built and they were willing to lean in and say “Free shipping matters” and having the absolute lowest price matters and having infinite selection matters and those are all things that customers wouldn’t have thought to ask for because they seemed impossible and so I love the willingness of–based also on the other leaders they are to say “We’re going to do the thing that we know people need” even one people can even imagine that they need that thing. I think that’s pretty incredible.

Scott: Yeah. It’s very Steve Jobs, right? “I don’t use focus scripts because people don’t know what they want”. Yeah, that’s totally great and then, so yes about Thumbtack so in terms of Thumbtack, what brands do you try to mimic and then I want to ask you if you keep a competitor in your — which one’s in your rear view mirror and which one’s in your windshield?

Nikki: Yeah. Good question. So on brands, we try to mimic, there aren’t any brands that we try to mimic like we are who we are and the company is now old enough that we sort of have DNA that’s deeply embedded in who we are, so, I want to be the brand that we are. The companies that I look at into the sort of brand experience is that I look at is interesting analogs to us. Two which are very different. One is Google. I mean, in many ways we are a vertical search engine, we’re a really good vertical search engine and the biggest search vertical. But, the way that Google has built the company which is entirely around it, incredible product experience, that’s just unassailable by competitors. That’s one thing that I think is a really interesting analog for us to look at which is like core product experience, core matching experience above all else. A very different one that I think about a lot and we talk about it a lot is Airbnb, Airbnb has taken a very different approach where their product is really wonderful but the brand that their building around community and around diversity inclusion and around impact on the world is very different and they have a real focus on hospitality and community that I think is interesting for us to look at is we think about this set of pros, with 250,000 pros, building community around them with millions of customers, building community around them, helping connect them to each other just as we’re working to connect ourselves to them so I think that’s another really interesting analogue.

Scott: That’s super. No, and I like all those two. I’m a big AirBnB fan cause I just like that. I liked that they just made it easier to use, underutilized capacity and help everybody out as well. I like that. What do you do for fun? It sounds like you work all the time and recruit people like 24 hours a day. Do you ever make time for yourself?

Nikki: I’m not great at making time for myself. I would say the vast majority of my time goes to working, which I love and spending time with my two little boys. I have a one-year-old and a three-year-old and I try to spend it as many hours while they are awake with them as possible. Going on adventures and doing all kinds of things with them. I would say, if I have one free minute, the first thing I always do is some sort of a home project. I am a constant remodeler, redecorator, I love learning how to do new projects around my house. My ideal is doing a project that I don’t know how to do. In partnership with a pro who is willing to teach me how to do it. So, I try to do basic electrical work myself, thanks to a Thumbtack pro who taught me at least the very basics of not electrocuting myself. I love decorating. I love building things. I love refinishing furniture so all different types of projects around my house.

Scott: That’s cool, very tactical. You must need that like before and after look.

Nikki: Yes, that’s exactly right and I love power tools so anything that can involve power tools, I’m into.

Scott: Do you have a chainsaw?

Nikki: I do have a chainsaw, actually. I had a fence built and the person who was finishing the fence was going to come back to — one part of the fence was too high and he was going to come back the next week to fix it and I just wanted it done that day. So, one time, I bought a chainsaw and cut the top of the fence off. It felt like a justifiable need for a chainsaw.

Scott: Yeah, especially in California, I can’t believe they even have chainsaws but that is [laughs]–

Nikki: Those are from husband are some sort of a Home Depot purchase. I love Home Depot.

Scott: Yeah, yeah. Me too. Me too. I got my chainsaw on Home Depot. And I’ve worn several chains out. It’s like the ultimate power tool.

Nikki: Yeah, I should not yet worn chains out. I don’t use that as much as I would like to but I do, I like to go out in the woods and cut down a branch from a tree or that kind of thing as well.

Scott: It’s great. So, Nikki, if somebody wanted to ask you a question, contact you, what is your channel of choice? You like Linkedin? Twitter? Do you have a Thumb– are you a Thumbtack professional where we can hire you for project management? What do we need to do?

Nikki: Linkedin is probably best. I aspire to be a handy man on Thumbtack. I have not quite found the time to do it but I also think my handyman skills are not quite up to par. But one of my goals is be a good enough handyman that I can actually respond to customer request on Thumbtack but for now, Linkedin is a good spot.

Scott: Okay perfect. And then we’ll link to your page so people can know who you are. Do you have, anything that you want to close with? Any closing advice for aspiring marketers out there?

Nikki: Find a product and a company and a group of people that you absolutely love and pour your heart into it. I think that’s my best career advice for marketers and planning one.

Scott: Well, perfect. I really appreciate your time today Nikki. I love the energy and I love you, like I totally want to work there now because you have so much energy and–

Nikki: We are hiring.

Scott: I really appreciate the time you invested and the listeners and wish you the best.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-hire-an-expert-nikki-pechet/feed/0Nikki Pechet offers expert advice on marketing and recruiting and sometimes seeks expert advice with her own home improvement needs. She leads marketing at Thumbtack where millions of customers and over 250,000 paying professionals per quarter use the Thumbtack marketplace to complete projects all over the country. Thumbtack provides a platform for professionals to find [...]NoNo34:39Scott Kingcontent marketing, hiring, strategyHow to Create a Marketing Plan – Dave Chaffeyhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/create-a-marketing-plan-dave-chaffey/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/create-a-marketing-plan-dave-chaffey/#respondThu, 08 Jun 2017 12:00:15 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3158Dave Chaffey (@DaveChaffey) has specialized in sharing knowledge and providing actionable digital marketing advice on how to best apply digital media and technology for marketing through consulting, training and writing. Dave gave his first training course on Online Strategy for the Chartered Institute of Marketing in 1997, and is the author of Digital Marketing Excellence which is now its 5th edition. He is currently Co-CEO and CMO of Smartinsights.com where he drives optimization in his own company and teaches others on how to create a marketing plan.

In this episode, Dave explains how he and Smart Insights are helping marketers and businesses get more from digital marketing. Dave talks about all of the different assets available to marketers on Smart Insights like capability graders, templates and guides and quick win courses to help marketers achieve better results. Dave also goes on to provide research results on the most popular items that digital marketers download and who they are.

Enjoy, and be sure and grab all of the digital assets mentioned in the episode.

Questions During Episode:

What is Smart Insights and how are you teaching marketers today?

You have created created a global business using Content Marketing “Building a global B2B audience with Content Marketing”. How did you do that?

What services do you provide to your customers?

What are the most popular content pieces on your site to create a marketing plan?

Contact Dave Chaffey

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/create-a-marketing-plan-dave-chaffey/feed/0Dave Chaffey (@DaveChaffey) has specialized in sharing knowledge and providing actionable digital marketing advice on how to best apply digital media and technology for marketing through consulting, training and writing. Dave gave his first training course on Online Strategy for the Chartered Institute of Marketing in 1997, and is the author of Digital Marketing Excellence which [...]NoNo37:28Scott Kingcontent marketing, elearning, hubspot, marketo, Martech, strategyHave a Consistent Message – Andy Shanehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/consistent-message-andy-shane/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/consistent-message-andy-shane/#respondThu, 01 Jun 2017 13:00:49 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3150Andy Shane (@andyeshane) has more than 25 years of PR experience in both agency and corporate settings. He is an expert in media relations, corporate communications, spokesperson training, crisis management, reputation management, social media, and client communications. Andy currently serves as chief strategist of The Power Group, where he develops engaging stories and mentors a team in all facets of public relations and account management.

In this episode Andy and I talk about how to develop engaging stories, create a consistent message and find the right outlet for your client and your audience. Andy describes when you should have a formal crisis management plan and discloses the worst crisis in his professional career; murder. Later, Andy gives us tips on how to manage citizen journalists, fake news and your core media outlets to leverage their vehicles and voice.

I ve known Andy for years and I enjoyed documenting his professional opinions. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did.

Questions During Episode

How has developing engaging stories changed over the past 20 years?

Are there instances in the past that caused issues today?

What companies are doing a great job telling stories?

What are the biggest stories you have been involved in?

What is the worst crisis you have ever faced?

How much time should you focus on internal vs external crisis management?

Links and Mentions

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/consistent-message-andy-shane/feed/0Andy Shane (@andyeshane) has more than 25 years of PR experience in both agency and corporate settings. He is an expert in media relations, corporate communications, spokesperson training, crisis management, reputation management, social media, and client communications. Andy currently serves as chief strategist of The Power Group, where he develops engaging stories and mentors a [...]NoNo42:17Scott KingPRIs SEO Dead? – Paul Kortmanhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/is-seo-dead-paul-kortman/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/is-seo-dead-paul-kortman/#respondThu, 25 May 2017 13:00:54 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3133Paul Kortman (@namtrok) has taken his SEO talents on the road and has become a digital nomad. If you follow digital marketing, you understand the digital nomad lifestyle. If not, well, it essentially means your job or work depends on an internet connection and some keen skills and not constrained by a geographic location or an office.

In this episode, Paul joins me from Mexico and provides an overview of how SEO has evolved over the past decade and what small business owners can do themselves to optimize their digital real estate. He describes and details steps for advanced SEO methods and a strategy to get backlinks and referring domains called Skyscraper.

Paul’s advice during the episode includes:

Divide your SEO into 3 buckets

Focus 45% of your time on writing content for your search terms

Spend 45% of your time on backlinks

Spend the remaining 10% on code and technical SEO (tags, on page, code)

How to get backlinks using Skyscraper

How to stay under Google s RADAR when creating backlinks

Consider SEO is a long term investment

Questions During Episode

How has SEO evolved and what still works?

Is SEO Dead?

What is Skyscraper?

Is there a checklist you use to judge whether or not an article is good for skyscraper?

What can a small business owner do for SEO?

How do companies not quit SEO since it is such a long game?

Is there a magic number of how many backlinks you should create in a certain time

Links and Mentions

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/is-seo-dead-paul-kortman/feed/0In this episode, Paul joins me from Mexico and provides an overview of how SEO has evolved over the past decade and what small business owners can do themselves to optimize their digital real estate.NoNo41:18Scott KingSEO, SkyscraperThe $175M Facebook Ad – Ryan Stewmanhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/most-expensive-facebook-ad/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/most-expensive-facebook-ad/#commentsThu, 18 May 2017 13:00:32 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3117Ryan Stewman (@ryanstewman) has been up and down and up and down and is now riding high providing social media management and lead generation services for sales people. Ryan has overcome objections and more heartache than most people can imagine only to come out on top by working hard and showing up every day.

In this episode, Ryan discusses the last few years of Facebook advertising evolution. Years ago Facebook was a vast opportunity where few played, but now the appeal and corporate budgets are forcing ad prices to increase as supply decreases. Ryan explains how he is helping his customers by purchasing ads on the fringes of competitors and not directly competing and driving prices up. He provides tips on how to get super targeted and to find very targeted niches to get ads placed in front of buyers. One of his students, Scott Eames, took the advice to heart and ended up helping a friend sell a $175M jet airplane from a Facebook ad.

Listen in and hold on because Ryan s energy is contagious.

Questions During Episode

How are you helping business with Facebook advertising?

What have you noticed with conversion rates as Facebook ad costs have increased?

How have you used Twitter ads?

What have you noticed the last two months on YouTube?

What are you doing with your white board videos?

When you help people use Facebook ads, what are they selling?

Are salespeople going rogue with their own Facebook ads?

What are salespeople doing for themselves on Facebook?

Links and Mentions

Contact Ryan

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/most-expensive-facebook-ad/feed/1Ryan Stewman (@ryanstewman) has been up and down and up and down and is now riding high providing social media management and lead generation services for sales people. Ryan has overcome objections and more heartache than most people can imagine only to come out on top by working hard and showing up every day. In [...]NoNo35:52Scott KingFacebook, YouTubeMarketing with Purpose – Vineet Mehrahttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-with-purpose-vineet-mehra/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-with-purpose-vineet-mehra/#respondThu, 11 May 2017 13:00:26 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3095Vineet Mehra has just undertaken the job of a lifetime. Well, lots of lifetimes because at Ancestry they are in the business of documenting our lifetimes and telling us how close we really are to each other.

In this episode, Vineet describes in great detail what makes great brands and explains how the culture at Ancestry impacts and strengthens the brand with consumers. He goes on to point out that our past and the people that influenced us as we honed our marketing skills create the sum of what makes us who we are. Great leaders will take the sum of all of these skills to assemble teams that market with a purpose.

Vineet closes by describing what influence CMOs have today and where they may evolve in 2-5 years. Great CMOs will need outstanding customer insight and the ability to drive content to feed demand. They will also need to be current on technology as marketing technology budgets rival that of CIOs. But most of all CMOs need to be authentic leaders and help sustain a culture to retain the brand and resources.

Questions During Episode

What have you done since you have started?

How has the company culture influenced the brand?

How will your brand evolve?

Is there a North Star steering the marketing strategy?

In a year what will your performance look like?

Are you a top, middle or bottom funnel CMO?

How will your team change in a year s time?

Is there a certain skill you are excited to bring to the job?

How did the creative integration opportunity arise?

What are you going to bring what you learned from a mentor?

What role will the CMO have in 5 years?

What advice would you like to offer?

Contact Vineet

Vineet Mehra is Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Ancestry. He has held leadership positions at some of the world s best brands building companies such as Novartis Consumer Health, General Mills, and Procter & Gamble and has led diverse teams across Asia, Europe, North America and South America. Most recently, as Global President of Johnson & Johnson s Baby Care business, he was tasked with leading a worldwide team driving to re-invent their portfolio of baby brands to reinvigorate growth. He is a frequent speaker and panelist on the topics of shaping modern marketing organization, balancing the art and science of marketing, and data-driven marketing. Vineet has been a Judge and Speaker at Cannes, jury chair for the M&M Global Media Awards, and finalist judge for the Global Effie Awards. Most recently, he was recognized as one of the 100 most influential marketing leaders in the world. Vineet holds a degree from Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-with-purpose-vineet-mehra/feed/0Vineet Mehra has just undertaken the job of a lifetime. Well, lots of lifetimes because at Ancestry they are in the business of documenting our lifetimes and telling us how close we really are to each other. In this episode, Vineet describes in great detail what makes great brands and explains how the culture at [...]NoNo30:23Scott Kingbranding, strategyHow to Execute a Marketing Strategy – Josh Goldberghttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-execute-a-marketing-strategy-josh-goldberg/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-execute-a-marketing-strategy-josh-goldberg/#commentsThu, 04 May 2017 13:00:17 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3089Strategy has typically been a service far removed from the teams responsible for execution something we see on both the client and agency side. The result: executing teams don t have clear guidelines for what they are solving and products don t deliver the expected results. As marketers use more Agile methods, the strategist has new opportunities to guide and keep pace with the delivery teams.

In this episode, Josh Goldberg (@HelloAnalogous) and I discuss tools for integrating strategy into the design process and provide usable recommendations to help strategists contribute to design. Josh describes a process for accelerating strategy and getting products and experiences into the market faster.

Questions During Interview

What do people think strategy is?

How has digital strategy evolved over the last 20 years?

What makes a good strategist and how can you spot one?

Can you explain your just in time strategy model?

How to Execute a Marketing Strategy

Understand what is the product is

Define the problem you are trying to solve

Define the ideal customer and their needs

Understand what the brand traits and values are

Perform an exhaustive content audit and assess what content exists

Understand capabilities and capacities for throughput

Create backend that is easy to maintain

Contact Josh

Josh Goldberg has 20+ years experience setting business and marketing strategy, translating vision into digital products and services and coaching businesses through the transformation. He has built strategy, client service and project management teams for pioneering digital agencies such as Organic and Schematic and now at Analogous. His first digital job was writing jokes for Scott Adams for the Dilbert Zone (a top-50 site in the 1.0 days)

He started his career in production in MTV s international group, when the channel used to play videos.

Analogous digital products and services bring ideas that matter to life. For the past 20 years we have been doing this for startups and established businesses in US and Latin America. Among them: Inter-American Development Bank (global economic development), PunkinFutz (disability), National Immigration Forum (immigration reform), Maimonides Hospital (primary care), Urban Green Council (sustainability in the built environment). And of course we serve for-profit entities in finance, health, among others.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-execute-a-marketing-strategy-josh-goldberg/feed/1Strategy has typically been a service far removed from the teams responsible for execution something we see on both the client and agency side. The result: executing teams don t have clear guidelines for what they are solving and products don t deliver the expected results. As marketers use more Agile methods, the strategist has new [...]NoNo29:02Scott KingstrategyCreating a Customer Centric Culture – Chris Walkerhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/creating-customer-centric-culture-chris-walker/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/creating-customer-centric-culture-chris-walker/#respondThu, 27 Apr 2017 13:00:15 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3075Chris Walker (@WeRetaliate1st) owns and operates a growth marketing agency built by accident. Earning his scars in the music industry, Chris found that the most successful talent was assigned to work on the late year launches for the holiday season. He felt the late game heroes weren t being utilized effectively in the earlier parts of the year and sought to solve the great marketing talent supply and demand problem.

Since launching his agency, Retailiate1st, Chris has been helping customers acquire customers at low costs by executing effectively according to plan even after getting punched in the face. In this episode, Chris and I talk about how to back into your customer acquisition metrics by looking at your desired growth and run rates. Chris provides some advice for marketers and business owners on steps to take when launching a product, performing competitive research and profiling your ideal customer.

Questions During Episode

Why do you think it is difficult to acquire talent?

Do you set expectations on acquisition timing?

I need marketing help, how do you help me?

Where did they get their customer acquisition cost numbers?

Why the pet product niche?

What are some of the first things that you look at when ramping up a new customer?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/creating-customer-centric-culture-chris-walker/feed/0Chris Walker (@WeRetaliate1st) owns and operates a growth marketing agency built by accident. Earning his scars in the music industry, Chris found that the most successful talent was assigned to work on the late year launches for the holiday season. He felt the late game heroes weren t being utilized effectively in the earlier parts of [...]NoNo33:41Scott Kingcustomer delightRealities of Agile Marketing – Roland Smarthttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/realities-of-agile-marketing-roland-smart/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/realities-of-agile-marketing-roland-smart/#respondThu, 20 Apr 2017 13:00:01 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3052Roland Smart ( @rsmartly ) is both a student and visionary of marketing practices, procedures and continuous improvement. Not being formally trained marketer, Roland is constantly learning and feeding his results back in a test driven development process. He performs his own research for his agile marketing podcast, has authored a book on the same subject and spends is daytime hours at Oracle as VP of Social and Community Marketing.

In this episode, Roland and I talk about Agile marketing and how traditional marketing planning has become extinct and given way to more nimble Agile methods. Innovation is fueling marketing resource turnover in Fortune 500 brands and concurrently surrendering market share by disrupters in just about every industry. Roland gives us some statistics on what he sees in his own research about organizations making a successful transformation to agile marketing and what steps you can take to begin the journey.

Questions During Episode

What do people think agile marketing is when you describe it to them?

What are some common areas you suggest marketing organizations look to improve?

Can you reference some examples of companies doing a great job of scaling agile?

What are some steps organizations can start with when embarking agile marketing?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/realities-of-agile-marketing-roland-smart/feed/0Roland Smart ( @rsmartly ) is both a student and visionary of marketing practices, procedures and continuous improvement. Not being formally trained marketer, Roland is constantly learning and feeding his results back in a test driven development process. He performs his own research for his agile marketing podcast, has authored a book on the same [...]NoNo46:35Scott Kingagile marketing, metricsThe Perils of PowerPoint – Julia Klinehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/perils-powerpoint-julia-kline/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/perils-powerpoint-julia-kline/#respondThu, 13 Apr 2017 13:00:41 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3040

Julia Kline (@Julia_Kline) is a speaker, author, trainer and sales coach, with sales accomplishments in a number of industries. Julia brings years of sales experience selling face to face and has some outstanding tips on preparedness, sales tools and best uses of PowerPoint.

During the episode, Julia and I talk about some of the sales skills we all need to revisit to make sure are keeping our minds sharp and not drown in the perils of PowerPoint. Julia describes some of the pushy tactics of sales folklore and how listening is actually a skill so you can properly help your customer. She gives advice for sales training and why to invest in your salesforce to build trust with prospects so they turn into buyers.

Listen in to what sets Julia apart as she discusses training, honesty, authenticity and pushy sales people. Bonus if you can count how many times her cat, Smokey, talks during the interview.

Links and Mentions

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/perils-powerpoint-julia-kline/feed/0Julia Kline (@Julia_Kline) is a speaker, author, trainer and sales coach, with sales accomplishments in a number of industries. Julia brings years of sales experience selling face to face and has some outstanding tips on preparedness, sales tools and best uses of PowerPoint. During the episode, Julia and I talk about some of the sales [...]NoNo35:58Scott Kingauthenticity, powerpoint, salesData Driven Design – Joanna Peña-Bickleyhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/data-driven-design-joanna-pen%cc%83a-bickley/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/data-driven-design-joanna-pen%cc%83a-bickley/#respondThu, 06 Apr 2017 13:00:17 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=3019

Joanna Peña-Bickley (@jojobickley) is a true 21st century polymath and renaissance woman who is known as the mother of Cognitive Experience Design. The former Global Chief Creative Officer of IBM, Joanna is propelled by a multidisciplinary acumen in data driven design and technology. Her insatiable curiosity moves the C-Suite beyond obvious ideas and products, toward enduring market-making experiences for the connected era.

Joanna s award-winning artist hand has helped the world s most recognized companies and brands, such as Land Rover, Nokia, Sephora, American Express, MTV, Pepsi and Jay Z imagine and make innovative breakthroughs, with a philosophy of radical collaboration and remarkable digital craft. Whether creating one of the first streaming video players that changed the delivery of live news events for ABC, designing the first banking app for the Apple Watch that made banking personal again for Citi, or reinventing the connected car as a cognitive mobility platform, Joanna s tenacious creativity disrupts industry and makes new markets.

This is a fascinating episode. Joanna explains how data is transforming our lives before our very eyes. During the time the interview takes place, 294 billion emails were sent, 230 million tweets were produced, and over 30 petabytes of content was posted to Facebook. The marketers and designers that can utilize data driven design from our connected lives will be the ones to transform and create new markets.

Please listen and absorb what Joanna explains about her habits, ideals and what she has to say about empowering our children to create digital products and increase digital literacy amongst the less fortunate.

Questions During Episode

Describe yourself and your experience.

How can marketers be effective since so many of our targets are constantly distracted

How do you see artificial intelligence being used in marketing today? In 2 years?

How can we compete in our continuously connected lives?

Should marketer focus on dominating a channel like Facebook or develop their own?

If time is our most valuable asset how do we as marketers make the most of it?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/data-driven-design-joanna-pen%cc%83a-bickley/feed/0Joanna Peña-Bickley (@jojobickley) is a true 21st century polymath and renaissance woman who is known as the mother of Cognitive Experience Design. The former Global Chief Creative Officer of IBM, Joanna is propelled by a multidisciplinary acumen in data driven design and technology. Her insatiable curiosity moves the C-Suite beyond obvious ideas and products, toward enduring [...]NoNo39:05Scott Kingdata driven decisionsSales Role Specialization – Aaron Rosshttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/sales-role-specialization-aaron-ross/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/sales-role-specialization-aaron-ross/#respondThu, 30 Mar 2017 13:00:08 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2997Aaron Ross (@motoceo) wrote Silicon Valley s sales bible, Predicable Revenue , detailing how he helped build Salesforce.com s sales development team years ago in order to achieve predictable sales growth. His advice in sales role specialization has been implemented in many types of sales organizations like high-tech software companies, HVAC service vendors and sole proprietorships.

In this episode Aaron and I catch up on what has happened since Predictable Revenue and what the sales role specialization strategy has done to selling organizations. We talk about how social media outlets create more of a distraction for salespeople and how phone and email are still your best tools. We finish the conversation touching on the seven painful truths in his new book, From Impossible To Inevitable, and discuss his life with 11 kids.

Questions During Episode

Is Predictable Revenue still relevant?

How have social media platforms affected its strategy?

Any favorite stories from those that read Predictable Revenue?

Any old school product or service companies see growth after implementing your strategy?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/sales-role-specialization-aaron-ross/feed/0Aaron Ross (@motoceo) wrote Silicon Valley s sales bible, Predicable Revenue , detailing how he helped build Salesforce.com s sales development team years ago in order to achieve predictable sales growth. His advice in sales role specialization has been implemented in many types of sales organizations like high-tech software companies, HVAC service vendors and sole proprietorships. In this [...]NoNo29:28Scott Kinginside sales, metrics, Predictable Revenue, Sales Development, social media, social selling, strategyYou Should Adopt Agile Marketing – Jascha Kaykas-Wolffhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/adopt-agile-marketing-jascha-kaykas-wolff/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/adopt-agile-marketing-jascha-kaykas-wolff/#respondThu, 23 Mar 2017 13:00:59 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2972Jascha Kaykas-Wolff ( @kaykas ) believes in two key principles: Find opportunities where no one else is looking; And, never fail the same way twice. It s a methodology centered around Agile marketing practices and marketing technology. Coupled with a B.A. in Psychology from Whittier College, it s one that s served him well professionally and personally.

Prior to joining Mozilla, Jascha most recently served as CMO for BitTorrent, CMO for Mindjet, senior vice president of marketing and customer success at Involver, headed Global Marketing for Webtrends and experience at Microsoft and Yahoo!

In this episode, Jascha discusses how he got into marketing, what he has learned throughout his 20 years in B2B and B2C marketing and process automation techniques he brought over from app dev. He talks about how marketing should be a discipline taught and how you can find success in creating a sustaining throughput when implementing agile methodologies and technology to measure objectives and key results. It s a fascinating listen and I hope you enjoy it!

Questions During Interview

What do you do at Mozilla?

Do you think customer feedback is a driver of marketing process overhaul?

Which KPIs that you look at everyday?

If you were at dinner with 4 other CMOs, how will you convince them to adopt agile marketing?

Do you regularly read any specific blogs or listen to specific marketing pundits?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/adopt-agile-marketing-jascha-kaykas-wolff/feed/0Jascha Kaykas-Wolff ( @kaykas ) believes in two key principles: Find opportunities where no one else is looking; And, never fail the same way twice. It s a methodology centered around Agile marketing practices and marketing technology. Coupled with a B.A. in Psychology from Whittier College, it s one that s served him well professionally and personally. Prior [...]NoNo37:25Scott Kingagile marketing, cmo interview, mozillaGet More Insights From Your Marketing Data – Greg Myershttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/get-more-insights-from-your-marketing-data-greg-myers/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/get-more-insights-from-your-marketing-data-greg-myers/#respondThu, 16 Mar 2017 13:00:30 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2945Greg Myers helps small to midsize companies get more information out of sales and marketing data. Greg is CEO of Actio Insights and brings his 25 years of experience in B2B marketing including experience in three Fortune 500 companies, Greg understands the challenges marketing teams face today especially with creating truly data-driven actionable insights that drive business results.In this episode Greg discusses how he and his company helps B2B CMOs uncover the value hidden within the data to make better business decisions and explains his CAMPER process.

Questions During Episode

What do you and Actio Insights do?

What type of advice to people contact you for?

What does the exercise look like to start defining a systematic marketing process?

At what point do marketing leaders seek help with data?

Do you have a process you follow when explaining how to do this?

What role do the technology marketing vendors play?

Have you identified a common problem with organizations you have worked with?

Links and Mentions

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/get-more-insights-from-your-marketing-data-greg-myers/feed/0A conversation with Greg Myers, CEO Actio Insights, on gaining insights from disparate marketing data and systems.NoNo33:36Scott Kingdata driven decisions, growth marketing, metricsBeing Authentic – Adam Avitablehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/being-authentic-adam-avitable/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/being-authentic-adam-avitable/#respondThu, 09 Mar 2017 14:00:06 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2908Adam Heath Avitable (@avitable) is an internationally touring comedian who became a viral sensation across the globe after blogging about the destruction of his marriage with transparency and honesty. Adam’s authenticity about the affair that changed his life helped him build a huge audience of loyal readers who visit his blog and social media accounts, allowing him to supplement his personal stories and perspective with high-demand product reviews in every category, from beard care products to sex toys.

In addition to performing stand-up comedy, Avitable is also in demand as a speaker at conferences, corporate events, and marketing summits, where he describes how authenticity and transparency can develop a stronger, longer lasting customer base in a more organic way.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/being-authentic-adam-avitable/feed/0Adam Heath Avitable (@avitable) is an internationally touring comedian who became a viral sensation across the globe after blogging about the destruction of his marriage with transparency and honesty. Adam’s authenticity about the affair that changed his life helped him build a huge audience of loyal readers who visit his blog and social media accounts, [...]NoNo31:09Scott Kingauthenticity, avitable, Influencer MarketingPromotional Products Leave A Lasting Impression – Larry Cohenhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/promotional-products-leave-a-lasting-impression-larry-cohen/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/promotional-products-leave-a-lasting-impression-larry-cohen/#commentsThu, 02 Mar 2017 14:00:31 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2895

Larry ( @Larry_Axis ) has been President and CEO of Axis since he founded it in 1991. A graduate of Duke University and The University of Pennsylvania Law School, Larry quickly realized that his entrepreneurial spirit and creative energies were not being harnessed working in law-related fields. With a few good ideas, a lot of enthusiasm and a share of naiveté, Larry began Axis with a mission to help the best brands in the world tell stories. Stories that solve problems. Stories that change behaviors. Stories that are told on tangible products that leave a lasting impression.

From humble beginnings around his kitchen table to developing a full-service promotional products company, Axis has grown to over 70 employees with offices in New York City, Rye Brook, New York, Boston, Massachusetts and Chicago, Illinois. AXIS client base covers an exceptionally broad cross-section of industries (Pharmaceutical, Entertainment, Financial, Beauty and Fashion, Publishing and Sports) including companies such as American Express (under contract nationally). Over the last five years, Axis has gone on to win a Top 40 Distributor award from Counselor Magazine and Promo Marketing Magazine, SAAGNY’s 2015 Distributor of the Year award, and ranks highly on PPB s Greatest Companies to Work For annually. Axis Promotions is currently one of the top promotional merchandising agencies in the United States.

When Larry is not busy growing Axis, he is lending his expertise serving on the board of the Promotional Products Association International, PromoKitchen Advisory Board, Peernet Marketing Committee, and former chair of the North American Leadership Conference.

Listen in and hear how Larry and the Branding Executives at Axis provide advice on selecting and using the best promotional products for your business.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/promotional-products-leave-a-lasting-impression-larry-cohen/feed/1Larry ( @Larry_Axis ) has been President and CEO of Axis since he founded it in 1991. A graduate of Duke University and The University of Pennsylvania Law School, Larry quickly realized that his entrepreneurial spirit and creative energies were not being harnessed working in law-related fields. With a few good ideas, a lot of [...]NoNo37:09Scott Kingchotchkies, promotional items, schwagMake B2B Marketing More Human – Bhavesh Vaghelahttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/make-b2b-marketing-human-bhavesh-vaghela/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/make-b2b-marketing-human-bhavesh-vaghela/#respondThu, 23 Feb 2017 14:00:59 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2874Bhavesh Vaghela (@vaghela_b) is CMO at Paywizard where he is helping transform the business model in to a global SaaS software business. Paywizard offers subscription, billing and CRM solutions for pay TV operators today but it previously served as a an outsourced call centre for UK pay TV operators like Sky, ITV and eir Sports.

In this episode Bhavesh talks about how Paywizard shifted its message from a primarily B2B business into a B2B2C business while reducing headcount from 3000 to 200 to support the new model. He explains what happened to the company culture after the reduction and how they are transforming into a SaaS company. Bhavesh offers statistics on the different regions Paywizard markets to and how they adjust when making data driven decisions.

Bhavesh concludes the conversation by offering great actionable advice:

Use emotion in your B2B marketing similar to B2C marketing

Humanize your brand

Take risks, try new things and evolve

Be more sophisticated

Questions asked during episode

What do you do and what does Paywizard do?

Does Paywizard have a global audience?

Since you have been at Paywizard, what has changed?

What happened with top line and bottom lines when the company reduced in size?

How did Paywizard shift to a SaaS company?

What happened with the culture as you reduced the headcount?

What are you doing differently now that you are more consumer oriented?

What are differences you have seen when marketing in US, EMEA and Asia?

Do you know why you have big cancelation patterns in US and Singapore?

Do you have an example of a US-based software company doing a great job marketing in EMEA?

If you were going to offer some actionable advice to CMOs and aspiring marketers what would you advise them to do?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/make-b2b-marketing-human-bhavesh-vaghela/feed/0Bhavesh Vaghela (@vaghela_b) is CMO at Paywizard where he is helping transform the business model in to a global SaaS software business. Paywizard offers subscription, billing and CRM solutions for pay TV operators today but it previously served as a an outsourced call centre for UK pay TV operators like Sky, ITV and eir Sports. [...]NoNo35:37Scott KingB2B MarketingConnecting with Empathy and Authenticity – Lou Diamondhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/connecting-empathy-authenticity-lou-diamond/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/connecting-empathy-authenticity-lou-diamond/#respondThu, 16 Feb 2017 14:00:12 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2849Lou Diamond (@ThriveLouD) is the CEO Thrive and is a master connector and coach. At Thrive, Lou works with the most amazing people and makes them more amazing. By extracting value from all of your pent up potential, Lou strengthens your connecting power in order to create better relationships.

In this episode, Lou takes you through four key principles that formulate his book, Master the Art of Connecting. His four principles that he calls the Connecting Core are:

The Power of Empathy Embrace the power of Empathy, immerse ourselves into our target s world, and focus on understanding and addressing their needs.

Have a Fearless Mindset Step through the fears that hold you back; cross into courage by spinning those fears on their heads, thereby attaining the Fearless Mindset.

Have Authenticity Be authentic by being open, honest and coming from the heart with everything you do.

Living and breathing your Super Why Unleash the power of your Super Why to draw targets and others to your world.

Questions During Episode

What problem do you solve for companies and people?

If it so easy to connect with people why is it so difficult to truly connect?

How do you define a true personal connection?

How many true connections do you have in your notebook?

What are some of the actionable principles in your book?

What size companies do you work with and why are you referred to new connections?

If you were at dinner with three of your target prospects, what would you tell them to do?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/connecting-empathy-authenticity-lou-diamond/feed/0Lou Diamond (@ThriveLouD) is the CEO Thrive and is a master connector and coach. At Thrive, Lou works with the most amazing people and makes them more amazing. By extracting value from all of your pent up potential, Lou strengthens your connecting power in order to create better relationships. In this episode, Lou takes you [...]NoNo32:08Scott Kingauthenticity, connecting core, Empathy, FearlessGrowth Marketing – Sean Sheppard and Will Bunkerhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-marketing-with-sean-sheppard-and-will-bunker/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-marketing-with-sean-sheppard-and-will-bunker/#respondThu, 09 Feb 2017 14:00:38 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2840Sean Sheppard (@seanasheppard) and Will Bunker (@wbunker) co-founded GrowthX Academy. GrowthX Academy trains individuals who want to transition into a career in Sales and Business Development, Growth Marketing or UX Design.

Sean Sheppard is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully grown dozens of early-stage companies across a wide variety of products and markets.

At GrowthX Academy, Sean is focusing on sharing his expertise in monitoring and adjusting revenue pipelines to help startups improve the probability and predictability of sales and marketing success.

Before co-founding GrowthX, Sean built and ran the sales and business development track at Tradecraft, a flipped-classroom trade school where people develop the knowledge, skills and training to succeed in traction roles at startups. Sean also co-founded the Professional Sales College to change the way the world values the sales profession through graduating the best educated and trained sales professionals in the world.

Will is an investor in more than 150 start-ups, Will has made it his life s mission to help other entrepreneurs succeed in developing successful companies and achieving their goals. His skill and experience in connecting people have allowed him to build a global network of investors and entrepreneurs, all of whom he considers members of his extended family.

Before co-founding GrowthX and GrowthX Academy, Will raised and led the Silicon Valley Growth Syndicate, a seed-stage MicroVC. Will was also a selling-founder of One-and-Only.com, the largest internet dating site and one of the top 100 sites of the 90s, acquired by Ticketmaster for $47 million dollars and rebranded as Match.com.

Full Podcast Transcription Follows

Sean: Yeah, it’s our second go-around, we did it, we tested this hypothesis previously when we launched Growth X. So we have got quite a bit of data. What might be interesting is that conversation around, the students are coming here, all these people looking to move up, we get a lot of smart, young marketers, or traditional marketers, wanting to move in digital or technical, or hyper analytical marketing, or what we call the T-shaped gross marketer where they’ve got that top line understanding conceptually of all the demand aspects of growth marketing, but they select one particular area that they want to dive deep into and become and expert in.

Will: How we met originally was, Sean was teaching sales course, I had a portfolio of 80 companies, and of course the first thing your realize when you start investing in a line of start-ups is that Will Bunker is not a piece of software, he doesn’t scale. And so I would bring in my portfolio companies, and Sean would get students apply these sales techniques to the start-ups. And we had an early win where they took one of our company 30 000 a month to a million in a month in less than a year. And I just went “Holy shit, I wish that happened more often”. And so I am a big believer in the process that Sean has put together for getting to the truth about how to sell something. That’s kind of been the foundational truth around Growth X because we first started doing it internally for portfolio companies and then now we are again going out and trying to teach the methodology to students. Some of whom have and hopefully will continue to go to work for our best portfolio companies.

Scott: So how– I mean that’s pretty cool. So you have seen different kind of incubator areas like that. One of my old bosses used to work at a place called the Launch Factory around Boulder. It sounds familiar.

Will: So what’s interesting is that a normal incubator works along NVP and raising money. We only work with people after they have got some customers, and our whole thing is “how do you build a sales machine”.

Sean: Yeah, the valley of depth– the thing we figured out is that in today’s market place it’s easier to start a company than just to grow one. It’s easier to get a product to market than just to get people to pay for that product. And these incubators have all, 8000+ of them evolving purpose on developing product and raising money. No one was focused on marketing product and making money. And the valley of depth would exist between that seat state when they raised that around based on developing a product, and the A[?] around, where a company is found product market to fit in and is ready to raise more money to grow sales and marketing. And no one was in the middle there, helping them. And that was our area of expertise. You know, Will did build the world’s largest online dating site, on a 90,000 dollar bootstrap investment out of Dallas. I started in consulting different companies as a sales and marketing founder with great product people. Mostly everyone is traditionally focused on TFI product developers, and they ignore market development, and they don’t respect it, they don’t appreciate it. By the time they do realize how important it is, it’s often too late.

Will: They run out of money, they run out of cash.

Sean: And we got tired of hearing people say “Shut it down because you won’t be able to raise more money”. When the truth is, they just mis-allocated the money that was given to them.

Will: Right, you don’t run out money, you run out of traction that would attract more capital, or make money. You know what? It’s funny, after doing a match, I helped my brother and sister bootstrap a company, and they sold it last year, but I watched them wander in that valley of depth for like ten years trying to figure out how to sell a good product that companies use, they got an utility out of, but they never built a sales channel that worked, so instead of getting 200 million, they sold for 20 million. Which is still a good victory, but it’s not the value creation that could happen if you get that sales channel worked out.

Scott: So what are some of the, do you guys have a list of lowest common denominators that you see amongst all these companies, and then that’s what you guys try to figure out, and push into the academy?

Will: There is a process, right? So we haven’t– when we think about it, the academy is for individuals.

Sean: Right, we said we invest in companies that– with smart product focused founders, that are humble and hungry enough to recognize that they don’t know what they don’t know yet about the marketing side of their business. Once they are invested in, they can apply for accelerator program, marketing acceleration program, which only a handful like 12 to 15% of our portfolio actually qualifies for. The conditions have to be right, they have to have the right resources, they have to have the right attitude, most importantly. They have to let us help them to the point to where then we can replace ourselves with more talent, and that’s when we realize, there isn’t enough talent that knows how to work in a start-up because you already know. Scott start-up work is very different that mature company work. The behaviors, the knowledge and skills you need can apply in mature companies, mature company experienced employees who don’t know what they are getting themselves into when they go to a start-up. And 90% of these sales marketing leaders that are hired out of bigger companies in the similar industry, because they have relationships by start-ups as a way of moving up by the way. This is one of the classic strategies, right? You hire a marketing manager form the same customer-base, same market segment, who wants to be a director of marketing, or who wants to be a VP of marketing, or CMO. They go to a small company for the title and look at the upside, but they don’t realize that there is a significant learning curve that they have to go though. They don’t know how to navigate that, they don’t know how to behave, and they certainly don’t know how to interact with the product and engineering team who is usually shitty at talking to humans. And so what you end up with is expensive people who wash out. The product team and the investors playing the sales and marketing people, and it has nothing to do with them. It has to do with the learning curve of being efficient at finding the truth, getting the product market set before you– scale.

Scott: And so you guys are trying to shorten the learning curve, or put skilled people back into this eco system?

Will: A lot of it is to build a learning model within the company on the human to human selling side. I mean there has been a ton of, you know, there is a lot more knowledge around how to close a loop if you have a touch-less digital system, with your analytics and analyzing your funnels, and getting the feedback. What really is missing is that same system for the human to human interaction, and how do you talk to human beings to get market feedback that you didn’t put into the product; how do you qualify the right people instead of try to cram it down their throats. And so Sean has a whole methodology around early sales development for start-ups that really works. I mean the answers that come out are different for every company but how you get the answers is the same.

Sean: I go to line as your path, you product in your market maybe unique but that path of product market is not.

Scott: Right because, I mean, you are looking at all the different customer segments and value propositions, like everybody has a different value proposition, but essentially you got to find people and you have to talk to them, and you have to convince them of your value prop, I mean that would all be different.

Sean: Well, the first thing is that you have to– everything that comes out of your mouth or out of messaging needs to be designed into one thing, and that is generating positive reaction. And if you don’t generate that, then you have to continue to learn until you do. But most people do because there is a product focus, so they start and lead with product, and they don’t– and they make it about them as opposed to about the market, the customer. One of our fundamental beliefs is that it’s not products that creates value, it’s customers. And building things and taking it to market as suppose to going to market and then building is another fundamental mindset ship that we have to help people make. We are trying to do that with the academy, and teaching them link thinking, and principals around “market first product second” as suppose to the other way around.

Will: I mean the biggest mistake I see constantly when dealing with founders and when we are evaluating investments is they want to define the unknown trillions in the universe as their customer, and when in reality if everyone on the planet called in today, they couldn’t fulfill it anyway, they couldn’t answer the phone, they couldn’t talk to everyone. So who is Mr. Right Now that you go after for the next three months that gets you the most value creation in your company? And you know from that company that they took from 30,000 to a million a month, it was one industry that happened to have a particular need that this company could have meet immediately, and they 10x the company of that one customer segment.

Scott: Yeah, that’s always great. Especially if you are chasing some type of compliance rule, or some type of industry standard that’s coming down everybody’s throat, and finding those is unique. But I imagine most of the guys that you are dealing with, they are shooting for the Moon. Like you said, there are several examples, one out of Dallas I think was the PooPouri, if you guys have ever heard of that. They had a really successful video, and everyone came to the website at the same time and it crashed. They basically couldn’t fulfill orders. But that’s kind of a CPG example, but there are lots of different examples like that. Do you guys teach by example, do you have some favorite stories that you guys…?

Sean: Yeah, the academy is the learning model by Dr. Wayne Neale who is the general manager of the academy who has a background specifically of this kind of learning. Which is we build a Flipped-Mastery Competency-Based education program that’s completely immersive, only experiential. So during the twelve weeks whether they are growth marketers or sales people or designers, they are working up real projects with real clients. Those are companies that are either in our portfolio or in our community. And they are gaining the experience they want, so it’s tightly scoped work, both sides get what they want out of it, and then it creates organic relationships that can turn into jobs. But if it doesn’t, he is going to have a portfolio of experience which says “Look, this is what I did while I was there”. And then they can learn and understand form the career standpoint where they want to work, what kind of work they want to do in a company, what industry sector, what kind of people, most importantly, they want to work with. Because it’s always about the people.

Scott: Yeah, it really is. I mean because people still buy from people that they like. That’s just how you find those guys.

Sean: Your point about, you know, finding a compliance rule is an example. I can tell that there are always four reasons of why businesses buy from other businesses: to make more money, save more money, create a competitive advantage or stay out of prison.

Scott: Yeah, the stay out of prison. I forget how long ago Sarbanes-Oxley came out, but that is, it’s a very effective stay out of prison methodology. Haven’t used that one before in the past, but that’s interesting.

Sean: Yeah, feel free. I mean people are generally scared, right? Fear, uncertainty, and doubt drives a lot of behavior much in the same way just like an opportunity does.

Scott: Yeah, but you know too much of the FUD and you’ll be accused of being a fear monger, right? By selling by fear. I’ve seen that in the past. It’s just like sell the negative so hard it’s hard to see the value. So in terms of some of them more successful, you know, companies that I’ve worked with, some of the students, what’s their feedback? I would assume this is pretty great, because are they getting free labor, or are they paying for this?

Will: Well it’s a project and so it’s free because we’re dealing with people on a learning stage, they get input from us as the instructors. So that’s probably worth, you know, they perceive some of the value, but then some of it is just having someone do the grunt work, the hard work.

Sean: But the real value that we gain out of it as an ecosystem, you know, we believe that the– we think the new product is an ecosystem, and by that I mean we think that it takes several different legs of the stool to build an ecosystem that supports entrepreneurs, founders, funders and the people that want to work with them. It starts with bringing the founders and funders together, so we created a seed stage fund for that. Then the market development expertise to help them grow through the accelerator program; and then the talent development through the academy to help them continue that growth. One of the byproducts of that is we find amazing opportunities to invest in that we otherwise never would have found. A great case and important story is that we had a student come through, who had had two jobs as a sales development and worked for bad bosses. Very smart, young, hustling girl, through the course of learning from us, she was able to source her own project through a prior relationship she had with a company that was growing at thousand– close to a thousand users a day, called “Free Camp” which is essentially open social version of Base Camp, project management software. They got over million users. They have never had one single piece of outbound sales of marketing. It has all been organic inbound and quite viral. So we saw through that the opportunity that existed there. She had a successful project, they hired her as their first developer evangelist, or user evangelist, and now we have the right to be first money in when they decide to go raise money, because they hadn’t done it yet, it has been strictly organic. So we got that opportunity through that deal. Another example is another girl that was from Dallas. Who went to SMU masters in accounting work for Earnest and Young. Hated accounting, and then decided she wanted to move to San Francisco and she wanted to do some in tech, but she didn’t want to be an accountant. And everyone out here wanted to hire her as an accountant or companies selling into accounts wanted to hire her. And so she came to the academy. She found out that what she liked was sales operations, we put her in one of our companies. That’s one our unicorns, called Distribute. She’s happy, they’re happy, the company is growing, she knows the methodologies to apply to that company and she gives us even additional– more additional insights into that company’s day-to-day operations as a result of the relationship and what we’ve done to support it.

Scott: That’s pretty cool. Yeah. And especially in the sales ops model being an accountant would be a huge advantage because it’s basically just math back and forth.

Sean: Yeah. But she said, “I don’t want to look at numbers. I want to deliver insights”. Actual intel. Great, sales ops is for you, and because our curriculum supports that, we put her on that path. She worked on two projects, one with the high-profile startup that we didn’t invest in and the other one we did. She chose to go to work they both made offers to her, and she chose to go to the one with our portfolio, which we love because we want them all to work in our portfolio or in our company or one of our companies. So, it’s working out quite well that way, and we think that’s the virtuous cycle of the future, you know, not the vicious cycle in the past.

Scott: Right. Right. So, when– what other things, if you were, you know, sitting around the office and you had ideas you had time to think of ideas or look for other opportunities, what do you guys look for?

Sean: Well, we’re stamping out the model here. Over half of our investments are outside of Silicon Valley. We’ve all built our companies elsewhere. I did it in Arizona. Will did it there. Our partner, Andrew, did it in Asia, and now he’s in Nashville. We have another partner in San Diego who’s from South Africa, and we want to have this model exist in the 30 largest startup ecosystems on the globe.

Will: Where, you know, we have a school that teach talent, an accelerator to help companies that we’ve invested in, and a partner there sourcing deals and managing the deals.

Sean: Because we don t think founders should have to leave their hometown which is what we see all the time and come to the most expensive city in the world to be close to their capitalist as opposed to close to their customers.

Scott: Right. Yeah. And especially when we re all connected all the time. It really doesn t matter where you sit, so that is an important part, right? Because even, you know, like we talked about earlier when you take the really expensive person and you displace them and it doesn t work out, you re trying to eliminate that with the founders as well because, I mean, displacing yourself adds stress, just life stress, right? And not necessarily work-induced stress. It s just basically, you’re displaced, so it s always nice to stay at home, if you want to.

Will: I mean, everyone you know, it s funny. There s a huge pressure to move to Silicon Valley, right? And why? Well, because the perception is that s the only way I m going to get funding, so I got to move out to Silicon Valley, make friends with capitalists, they ll put money in it. However, when you do that, the cost of time and the amount of money that is going to take to build your company because of the competitive environment out here goes to the roof. But, you know, you re best source of startup capital is your customers. That s where we made all our money when I was building mash.com. We cash flowed it from our customers. That s where my brother and sister got their money. I mean, there was a whole world built before they were venture capitalist and most of the money comes from selling to people, and so, you know, we want to take that focus and help people, you know, efficiently start selling to their customer so they don t have to raise the next round, or if they do raise the next round, it s on their terms, their timing, their valuation.

Scott: Right. Yeah. It s much better to be on that side of the fence than the other when you re just burning cash you re getting the worst deal because people can see it.

Will: I mean, I met a gentleman down at South by Southwest. He was from, I want to say, Dallas. He sold his business for $75 million and he made $300,000 and that was all that he got out of it because he raised too much money and it took too long and by the time he got done, he didn t own anything. It s sad.

Scott: Yeah. That is sad. Yeah. You don t want to find yourself in that situation, right?

Sean: Yeah. This fundamental shift that Steve Case talks about Third Wave, you know, we believe in it in our version of it, the way we described it is we live in this age of applying technology as supposed to development which goes back to the initial piece of statement of it s easier to start a company than to grow one. First time I raised money in 2001, I raised $8.5 million just to build an MVP for a network, an IP tracking management solution. I can build that same product today for about 200 grand, because all the infrastructure exists. So, people are rapidly building things without actually talking to anybody, and so venture capitalists are saying, Alright. We re going to take the same amount of capital, and we re going to spread it across more companies, less of it, across more companies, and say, Alright. Let s see how you execute, and so, it ultimately comes down to that. CB Insights tracks all the reasons why startup companies win or lose. They do great research in this area, and the top 10 reasons startups fail, six of the top 10 are related to the market, two are related to the people or team, and only two are related to the product, and everybody s focused on the damn product, and that s the area that we continue to say matters most. So, there s a guy in Cincinnati, Ohio who s got a great idea. He s bootstrapping a company and he s doing it the right way because he has limited resources and isn t that a luxury focusing on things other than getting customers to pay him for, and we find those people, those are the ones that we want to invest in, and the only way to do that is to get that word out that that s what we re looking for and then eventually create ecosystems around them to support them.

Scott: So, when you say “get the word out” how what s your favorite method of doing that?

Sean: Well, we re helpers. I mean, part of our attitude is help is our due diligence. We speak in a lot of events. We do these podcasts. We our partner, Andrew Goldner, was a publisher of Reuters for seven years and he s a very content guy. He s real strong with it. So, we have live events. We have online meetups and events. We do a lot of education. We do a lot of speaking engagements. We do a little bit of paid acquisition for the academy, but

Will: Some content, you know, like we bring in ventures and then we try to share with the bigger world, you know, what they ve learned, and just be as helpful as possible. I mean, that was people when I first became a VC four years ago, you know, there s hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Silicon Valley with that title, and people go, What s your competitive advantage? And my answer was, I m going to be the most helpful person these founders meet. And I just you know, we live by that credo.

Scott: Yeah. Well, that s a good way because you definitely do see a lot of people that, you know, seem to be or claim to be helpful and, you know, they re really not, right?

Will: Well, the typical investor relationship is very combative, especially when people are evaluating a company, they sit in a meeting, and they criticize and knock down everything the founder says. It s part of their due diligence. I just don t have that attitude. I mean, we lean in and try to find who could we introduce you to that would be another customer. Who could we how can we help you to determine if this is a good idea or not, because at this stage we re talking hell nobody knows. I mean, it s really easy to pick apart something and say it s not going to work, because statistically, you re right. Most things don t work, but that s just not helpful. So, we just have a different approach.

Scott: That s great. Not getting customers is a big issue, right? Because the customer teaches you a lot of different things, right? Once they d become your friend, they ll be honest with you, and Hey, your product should do this, or, you know, Your process took too long, right? And you can learn from that and then that also produces the content, right? Because the content from a customer is the Holy Grail, right? Everybody wants to tell customer stories. It s just, you know, how do you do that, and from a you know, a lot of times from a product perspective, right? The product guy can tell you how the thing works and why it s better than you know product Y, but from a customer value perspective, you know, he s got no idea, right? Because he s just like, Hey, this solves this problem, but the problem may or may not have the value that he thinks it has.

Will: I ll give you a great example. I ll let Sean tell it, but there was a company, Life Detection it was a group

Sean: Life Detection Technologies, one of our portfolio companies. They have a patented way to measure human vital signs without touching the human body through a low-frequency magnetic field that they create, and the you can imagine the applications that measure human vital signs without contact. There s myriad of them, right? That s the problem, is when you have everybody as your customer, nobody s your customer. It s no different than everything s a priority, then nothing s a priority. So, we took them through a very simple process. Our approach, alright, let s identify some ideal customer profile hypotheses and let s test those hypotheses and let s see what the market says, and we settled on baby monitor integration which is a big problem. Integrating this kind of technology to a mattress or to other monitoring devices. We developed messaging. We identified a group of about 45 individuals across the seven largest manufacturers in those areas, C level and heads of a product BD, and we ran a very simple one off personalized email campaign to each one of them asking if this is the kind of thing they would be interested in reviewing and discussing. We received a 100% response rate, and we made a market where four of them were competing for a nonrecurring engineering opportunity to have an exclusive, you know, go to market right to use this technology, and that was before we invested.

Will: That was our due diligence Because we helped them land the first deal that made them investable as due diligence.

Sean: And then we invested in them in a $2.5 million valuation and they just raised money at $15M less than a year later, and that s the kind of stuff that we do to help our companies grow.

Will: And you know, the normal VC would ve said, Hey, come back when you have a customer. Our approach is, if we like you, and we think you re coachable, let s get you that customer so we can invest in it.

Scott: Right. Then, I mean, that is definitely unique, right? Yeah. I would assume that the VC would say, Hey, you know, Go get five customers and come back to me then, because then that proves to me that you can do it, whereas, you know, you guys took the other approach, right? Let me see if it can work and then, if it can, you know, just like with your other opportunity where you were talking about, you know, first-right money in, then, you know, that s basically how you guys are finding these unique opportunities, right? So, I would assume that, you know, more people contact you than you work with and you re just cherry picking from that, right?

Will: Well, we just try to find people we want to help. I mean, ultimately, this whole business, like when you invest in a startup or when you begin a startup, it s a three- to seven-year commitment at a minimum if you re successful, and so, you re stuck with each other for a very long time. So, the flipside of that was we helped another company get into Apple. We re not going to say their name because the story doesn t end well, and what we learned by helping that person is that they were a jackass, and guess what? I m glad I knew before I put my money in, because that person s personality is not going to change and we found out by trying to help them how they behave under stress, and it told us, don t do it.

Scott: Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, you saved yourself a lot of heartache there. You know, if with that guy, so, because, you know, I mean, the stories that you guys are telling are, you know, the stories that I hear often because I read that kind of stuff, you know, you hear about somebody winning the lottery, so you play the lottery, but you know, the odds are against you. But you guys are pretty unique situation in terms of how you ve, you know, looked at the problem just, it s the same problem but it s definitely a different view in terms of, you know, one, how you re helping the customers sell and making sure that they re selling a solvable problem, you know, from a value perspective, and then the whole methodology behind it is really, really cool. Sean, can you explain a little bit more about like how you learned your process maybe or in how far does it

Sean: Twenty years of recognizing patterns from buying startups and, you know, a wide variety of products, markets, and verticals, and then getting into the investing game and then advising and then in the course of that, being able to take a step back and say, how can I be most helpful? What s the most systematic and appropriate way to scale what I know? And it was to develop a methodology that was product and market agnostic and industry and sector agnostic that applies across marketplaces, B to B, B to C, doing it in a way that never really talks about a specific product or market, but that there s an approach that works to get to the truth which is ultimately what this is all about. We all want to learn. The two things from our program, from our methodology that we set out to accomplish is number one, organization out of a company where everybody s learning together because at the seed stage, you need to be learning, and then two, can we find a repeatable, scalable, predictable, economically viable business model where costs mean less to acquire customers than they pay me. And those are the two overarching objectives, and the other part of it is, is that I ve always had a passion for the misunderstanding called the myth of the salesman, I suppose the death of the salesman, this idea that we re all raised with which is salespeople are slick, manipulative. There s a negative connotation. It goes back to the snake oil and used cars and Willy Loman and all that crap, when the reality is that when you do this well, there s no more valued number of an organization, and there are no college degrees for professional sales. No one grows up saying I want to be in sales. The entire industry, it s one of the greatest professions, if not the greatest, it has the highest average income over a lifetime of any profession, lowest divorce rate, happiness quotients through the roof, but people don t know that it s even a thing until they graduate college, and 50% of college graduates end up in sales-related roles in their lifetime with no background, no training, and certainly no appreciation for it.

Scott: I don t know how long it would take to evolve, but we get a bad connotation of salespeople because years and years ago, they had more information than the buyer, and now the buyer, a lot of times, has more information than the salesperson.

Will: Well, at its highest form, you re helping people solve their problems, and you re looking for people that your product adds a lot of value to, not trying to trick them into buying it.

Sean: Yeah. Our philosophical approach to this is that our success comes from the success of others and in order to understand and in order to help other people to be successful, you have to understand them and their business as well as you understand as well as they do if not better, and so, business acumen and market and marketing acumen are the first two primary things that we teach our companies and our students. Then, we get into all the models and methodologies that exist and how to apply them. Then, we teach them communication, management, and leadership skills. Personal development is huge. We say there s no distinction between personal and professional development because behaving well in a startup is not easy and so

Sean: Stress is often unbearable for people, and you have to understand if you are naturally someone who s motivated by that or you are frustrated by that, and then, how do you react to that, and then, it s we do a lot on career development and we teach them to apply the same methodologies they learn and going and finding product market fit, what we call person-company fit, so that they can enjoy make immediately make an impact with the work that they do and enjoy it, and then it s project time. Now, we re throwing you to the wolves. You ve got a foundation. We re going to support you. It s the safest place you re going to be for 12 weeks. Feedback is a gift, you know, people come here believe in our core values which we plaster everywhere, and we make sure that they know that this is a community and that this is a family and that this is an ecosystem that we re building and they have access to all of it, and then, the other side of it is we have an amazing community of mentors. We talked about the companies and the founders and the financing but we have people like us, our peers, people like you, Scott, that participate and give back to the community either through wisdom, by hiring, by referring talent in, and extracting their own, you know, career advancement, development, and networking from it as well, and so, it becomes this large ecosystem where everybody can help each other.

Scott: That s great. That s great. Well, I appreciate that, Sean. I mean, that is that’s a good summary and, you know, makes me feel good and I hope everybody listening feels better now.

Scott: What do you do in your spare time? So, you got any favorite hobbies and like if you had all day to yourself, what would you do?

Sean: I play golf. You know, I grew up I played in college and I played professionally for a little while and I it s my favorite thing to do outside of my family and my work.

Scott: Oh, that s cool.

Will: I read books.

Sean: He s a big reader.

Will: My goal my current goal is to read all the great books of literature and that will take a while.

Scott: Okay. Well, define great.

Will: It s arbitrary. So, I just picked a list and right now, I m reading Don Quixote, which is actually pretty damn funny.

Sean: What about the oldest book in print?

Will: That was terrible.

Will: A thousand pages of portrait of cows.

Scott: It was tough to get through. Well, guys, I really appreciate the time that you invested to my listeners, and you know, I hope you guys, well with the Growth X Academy and we ll link to you guys in all the show notes and everything and make sure and send you guys some great referrals.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-marketing-with-sean-sheppard-and-will-bunker/feed/0Sean Sheppard (@seanasheppard) and Will Bunker (@wbunker) co-founded GrowthX Academy. GrowthX Academy trains individuals who want to transition into a career in Sales and Business Development, Growth Marketing or UX Design. Sean Sheppard is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully grown dozens of early-stage companies across a wide variety of products and markets. At GrowthX Academy, [...]YesNo40:23Scott Kinggrowth hacking, salesSix Personal Branding Tips – Cynthia Johnsonhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/building-personal-branding-goals-cynthia-johnson/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/building-personal-branding-goals-cynthia-johnson/#respondThu, 02 Feb 2017 14:00:41 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2825Cynthia Johnson (@CynthiaLIVE) is an entrepreneur, marketing professional, author and keynote speaker. She is Co-Founder at Ipseity Media, a personal brand development and management agency in Los Angeles. Previously, she was Partner & Director of Marketing for RankLab, a digital marketing agency listed in Inc. Magazine’s Fastest Growing Private Companies in 2015. In July of 2015 RankLab was acquired by American Addiction Centers where she worked as their Director of Brand Development. She is an advisor to a social good company, DIVONA, as well as nGage.social, an influencer advertising startup. Cynthia is on the Forbes Agency Council, and a member of the Young Entrepreneurs Council. Cynthia was listed as top social media people to follow by Inc. Magazine, top 50 marketers on SnapChat by Mashable, top 12 Female Entrepreneurs that Inspire by Darling Magazine, and top 20 people in SEO by Guardian. She has been interviewed in Forbes, Huffington Post, and Chicago Planner Magazine. She is also a social media influencer on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

In this episode Cynthia offers 6 tips to implement in order to build your own brand to support pursuing your business goals and endeavors.

Personal Branding Tips

Write about your value proposition on a third party site.

Follow people on-line that are your targets and engage with them.

Make it easy for people to get in touch with you.

Don’t hoard contacts. Be helpful to your network.

Don’t fret your mistakes.

Use the influencers around you and don’t underestimate your personal network.

Links and Mentions

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/building-personal-branding-goals-cynthia-johnson/feed/0Cynthia Johnson (@CynthiaLIVE) is an entrepreneur, marketing professional, author and keynote speaker. She is Co-Founder at Ipseity Media, a personal brand development and management agency in Los Angeles. Previously, she was Partner & Director of Marketing for RankLab, a digital marketing agency listed in Inc. Magazine’s Fastest Growing Private Companies in 2015. In July of [...]NoNo28:25Scott Kingbrand development, growth hacking, social media, social sellingMarketing Blockchain Solutions – Jeremy Epsteinhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-blockchain-solutions-jeremy-epstein/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-blockchain-solutions-jeremy-epstein/#respondThu, 26 Jan 2017 14:00:54 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2800Jeremy Epstein (@jer979) is an expert marketer helping companies make sense of solutions built on blockchain technology. In this episode, Jeremy and I discuss and define blockchain and what are some of the most common issues when marketing the idea to new customers.

Join is and listen to how inefficiencies in the healthcare, mortgage, insurance and other industries can use blockchain technology to create value and trust.

Questions During Episode

If I need help with blockchain marketing, how did I get myself in this situation?

What are some of the common problems blockchain technology providers need to overcome?

What thinking does the enterprise IT team think of blockchain and what is their feedback?

Is banking the most common example for blockchain and bitcoin?

What are the next industries to use blockchain?

Will blockchain repair the imbalance of value?

What is the decentralization going to do to marketers?

What will the average consumer use to make sense of a blockchain reputation score?

Is there a finite value to blockchain technology when solving for the inefficiencies?

Links and Mentions

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-blockchain-solutions-jeremy-epstein/feed/0Jeremy Epstein (@jer979) is an expert marketer helping companies make sense of solutions built on blockchain technology. In this episode, Jeremy and I discuss and define blockchain and what are some of the most common issues when marketing the idea to new customers. Join is and listen to how inefficiencies in the healthcare, mortgage, insurance [...]NoNo36:47Scott Kingbitcoin, blockchainGrowth Hacking a Conference for 13,000 People in 90 Days – Derek Weekshttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-hacking-a-conference-for-13000-people-in-90-days-derek-weeks/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-hacking-a-conference-for-13000-people-in-90-days-derek-weeks/#respondThu, 05 Jan 2017 14:00:56 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2734Events and trade shows are big business. Many events have multi-million dollar budgets and require huge teams of people to organize, provide logistics and recruit sponsors and attendees. The high costs to attend these conferences limits the number of people who can attend from any given organization. But the obstacles of high-budgets, large event management teams, and select corporate attendees are being lowered…significantly.

In this episode I talk with Derek Weeks. Derek is the VP and DevOps Advocate at Sonatype in charge of demand generation, community engagement, market research and events. During our conversation we discuss how to build and measure a community and how his team engaged in a growth hacking exercise to produce the largest DevOps conference ever in under 90 days.

Derek and his community advocate, Mark Miller, recently created a brand new virtual event called All Day DevOps. All Day DevOps was held on November 15, 2016 for 15 consecutive hours, hosting 57 different sessions across three different tracks. The event attracted over 13,451 attendees. More impressive was that Derek and Mark collaborated with a core organizing team of eight people (six of whom were not employed by Sonatype) to pull off the conference for a net cost of $6000.

Listen in on how Derek engaged a massive community in 90 days to attend their inaugural event. It’s a great story on how the collective few can distribute high value knowledge and content to so many.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-hacking-a-conference-for-13000-people-in-90-days-derek-weeks/feed/0Events and trade shows are big business. Many events have multi-million dollar budgets and require huge teams of people to organize, provide logistics and recruit sponsors and attendees. The high costs to attend these conferences limits the number of people who can attend from any given organization. But the obstacles of high-budgets, large event management [...]NoNo37:13Scott KingDevOps, growth hacking, metrics, webinarStorytelling as a Business Competency – Billee Howardhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/storytelling-business-competency-billee-howard/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/storytelling-business-competency-billee-howard/#respondThu, 22 Dec 2016 14:00:51 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2715Billee Howard (@mashuptweet) is a storyteller. Billee’s experience at Weber Shandwick serving the worlds leading brands provided the insight to create her own storytelling brand, Brandthropologie. At Brandthropologie, Billee works with CMOs and business leaders on how to turn storytelling into business competency.

In this episode, Billee and I talk about how to enable and build resources to position story telling as a critical success factor. Successful companies are becoming entertainment studios and are performing better when telling customers who they are and what value they provide. As price points become similar amongst competitors in a segment the ones telling the better stories rise to the top. Some of the examples we talk about are how GE is transitioning its business, AirBnB using host content well and how Donald Trump s recent election victory resulted from telling a better story to a more hungry audience.

Listen in to some great examples and be sure and grab a copy of Billee s latest book, We Commerce.

Questions Asked During Episode

What do you do at Brandthropologie?

Who is responsible for creating the brand story?

What do you do if you don t have a large distribution channel like DreamWorks?

Who tells the best story? Why?

What is a good example of a company using customer stories well?

Who is driving the content strategy at AirBnB?

What are the advantages of housing your own production studio?

What is We Commerce about?

Who are the collective We?

What do you think businesses could learn from the collective We?

What type of stories are big companies like GE trying to tell?

What would you do with your time if you weren t running Brandthropologie?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/storytelling-business-competency-billee-howard/feed/0Billee Howard (@mashuptweet) is a storyteller. Billee’s experience at Weber Shandwick serving the worlds leading brands provided the insight to create her own storytelling brand, Brandthropologie. At Brandthropologie, Billee works with CMOs and business leaders on how to turn storytelling into business competency. In this episode, Billee and I talk about how to enable and [...]NoNo27:30Scott Kingbrand development, branding, storytelling, strategyAdvancing Digital Skills and Education – Edward Nevraumonthttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/advancing-digital-skills-education-edward-nevraumont/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/advancing-digital-skills-education-edward-nevraumont/#respondThu, 15 Dec 2016 14:00:16 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2701In 2008 Edward Nevraumont was working in Africa and found a consistent need amongst 6 different countries while working for the telecommunications company. He found there was a human capital problem and Africa couldn’t elevate itself out of the issue. He found people in power were there out of necessity and not because they had skills to get there.

Fast forward eight years and Edward finds himself helping solve this human capital need for digital skills. Edward is CMO of General Assembly running sales and marketing. General Assembly is a pioneer in education and career transformation, specializing in today s most in-demand skills: Web Development, Data Science, and UX / UI.

Listen in to Edward as he talks about the ROI on college masters programs, law school and his programs at General Assembly.

Links and Mentions

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/advancing-digital-skills-education-edward-nevraumont/feed/0In 2008 Edward Nevraumont was working in Africa and found a consistent need amongst 6 different countries while working for the telecommunications company. He found there was a human capital problem and Africa couldn’t elevate itself out of the issue. He found people in power were there out of necessity and not because they had [...]NoNo37:11Scott KingcollegeTechnical Storytelling – Andi Mannhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/better-technical-storytelling-andi-mann/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/better-technical-storytelling-andi-mann/#respondThu, 08 Dec 2016 14:00:12 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2689

Marketing teams go to great lengths to get messaging out to customers and prospects in order to sell products or services. There are numerous assets from the content marketing teams explaining features and benefits. There are hundreds of marketing automation and monitoring tools to measure effectiveness and speed delivery or listen to social chatter. All of these and many more tools are for reaching an increasingly unreachable prospect that is learning to ignore email, social media and numerous other electronic distractions.

How do you get through?

Enter, the art of professional storytelling.

In this episode I talk with Andi Mann. Andi and I know each other from our days at CA Technologies where were speaking, writing and promoting DevOps. Andi and I discuss his evangelist role and how this job functions to tell stories and broker value propositions from marketing to prospect. Andi describes his primary duties and provides a guide to obtain an advocacy or evangelist role.

Questions Asked During Interview

What exactly is a chief technical advocate?

How do you become a chief technical evangelist?

What is your favorite and most effective outbound tactic?

What is the biggest audience you have ever spoken to?

What is your favorite on-line tactic?

What do you do to refresh your skills and stay current?

What are some things people can do to become an evangelist?

Contact Andi

Links and Mentions

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/better-technical-storytelling-andi-mann/feed/0Marketing teams go to great lengths to get messaging out to customers and prospects in order to sell products or services. There are numerous assets from the content marketing teams explaining features and benefits. There are hundreds of marketing automation and monitoring tools to measure effectiveness and speed delivery or listen to social chatter. All of these and many [...]NoNo29:24Scott KingData Driven Decisions – Susan Ganeshanhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/data-driven-decisions-susan-ganeshan/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/data-driven-decisions-susan-ganeshan/#respondThu, 01 Dec 2016 14:00:04 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2668Susan Ganeshan, CMO of Clarabridge

Susan Ganeshan is the CMO of Clarabridge. Clarabridge helps hundreds of the world’s leading brands understand and improve their customer experience.

In this episode, Susan and I discuss how she reorganized her staff to make best use of the high cost resources. Susan expands on data driven decisions she makes and metrics she monitors on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. She then provides details on tools she is using and how these help create conversations for sales so they can ultimately help their customers.

Sponsors

Links Mentioned

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/data-driven-decisions-susan-ganeshan/feed/0Susan Ganeshan is the CMO of Clarabridge. Clarabridge helps hundreds of the world’s leading brands understand and improve their customer experience. In this episode, Susan and I discuss how she reorganized her staff to make best use of the high cost resources. Susan expands on data driven decisions she makes and metrics she monitors on a [...]NoNo37:40Scott Kingbrightfunnel, domo, gaggleamp, hubspot, marketo, metrics, salesforce.comMarketing Your Cause – Jason Mitchellhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-your-cause-jason-mitchell/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-your-cause-jason-mitchell/#respondThu, 17 Nov 2016 14:00:22 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2651

Value-based products and services sell themselves. Companies work to provide more for less and in exchange will sell a product or service so customers get more value than the price paid for the service.

What if you are trying to solicit funds for your cause?

Jason Mitchell is an expert in nonprofit marketing and fundraising campaigns. I sought him out since I starting getting questions about fundraising and nonprofit marketing. I didn t know anybody like that so a couple of referrals later, I met Jason. Jason has years of experience helping universities and charities run campaigns to increase donations and charitable gifts. In this episode, Jason discusses what makes marketing for nonprofits different and how certain organizations are more effective than others. Listen in and learn how to tell great stories.

Contact Jason

Sponsors

You were referred to me as a nonprofit marketing expert. Why?

Jason: Well, I ll accept that title but I m aware the moniker carefully. I hope I can be helpful to you. I guess it s time as much as anything. I ve spent of my adult life in and around nonprofits probably for the first decade or more working inside a variety of nonprofit endeavors where I was busy trying to market the initiative and raise funds for initiatives, expand the initiatives and spent now close to 15 years on the for profits besides serving in the nonprofits based, so assisting marketing nonprofit organizations in their marketing and fundraising efforts both from anywhere – how do you acquire $25 donor acquisition strategy all the way up to campaign that might raise $100 million for an athletic football stadium or something like that. So I ve had the pleasure to see and work with inside of and outside and assisting alongside small and large organizations so I ve seen quite a bit so I suppose wisdom just comes with seeing a lot of things and making a few mistakes and learning how to do it better over time.

What is a small organization? Can you name the exact one that you worked with? What s the largest so we can get a scale?

Jason: Man, I m trying to think of an example of a really small one. We worked with a group early on in the early 2000s, a group called Teen Mania in Texas. It was a small faith-based organization and they were just trying to expand their donor base outside of their small group. They may have had a database of a thousand names at that time of people who they had as constituents, participants, donors. On the big side, we could be talking University of Notre Dame, with an alumni base of half a million folks, at least that they have on record, and the participation rate of 20%. I had the privilege of working with them on a number of projects and those are two different problems. You know you have on the one hand a small fledgling kind of unknown organization that doesn t have any money and then on the other hand, you have a large well-known, solid brand, fairly lucrative organization but they also need to survive on raising funds annually as well.

What makes marketing different in your opinion for the nonprofits? What makes the difference for the marketing professionals that work there?

Jason: I think the first thing is from the outside looking in when you re working with a nonprofit that may be seeking your help. A lot of times, nonprofits are started by passion-based people. These are folks who may or may not have business expertise or marketing expertise or fundraising expertise. They just know how to deliver the service to the people that need help and that s what or whatever that is. Successful ones, develop an organization as able to assist a lot of people, but at some point that doesn t necessarily translate into effective marketing or communication of the great things that are happening maybe sometimes halfway across the world.

So typically, organizations develop and spend a lot of time building the infrastructure of the delivery of service and so therefore they re late adopters in things that relate to telling their story in a grand and efficient scale. The organizations that have grown the medium scale or large scale have become very good to direct a response in the mail and digital spaces as well. If you have donated to one humanitarian organization, you get seven others. My wife likes to donate to animal causes, she gets mail from virtually every animal cause there is now.

But the biggest issue really is just the competitive space. There are so many good organizations doing so many great things around the world and it s so easy to be on places like Facebook. For me to see my niece in Boise, Idaho who s raising money for her school, it is easy to donate. Ten years ago, I wouldn t have known that possibility existed but that may pull some of my philanthropic dollars because I love my niece. Alternatively, I can see an ad for Kiva and make a $25 loan to a gentleman in Sudan who wants to raise money for his bike shop. So there s immediacy in it and intimacy to where we re inundated with opportunities to be philanthropic with a lot of good causes. Therefore, really it s incumbent upon nonprofits to be aware of those things. But those are the challenges, is realizing that oftentimes they re late adopters to technology and leading edge solutions.

How do nonprofits perform target marketing and then target the different donors?

Jason: Well, first of all, there are a lot of opportunities that exist out there and certainly, the sophisticated ones have done some marketing work in the area of personas and breakdown of their donor base. But there are also different audiences they re talking to. A healthy donor file will have a certain amount of new donors coming on into organization at all times and a certain amount of shepherding of those donors from lower levels to mid-levels. Then a certain amount of marketing goes into identifying, through data and other kinds of communication pieces, who are those people that aren t just going to do a hundred bucks a month but might do a thousand dollars or hundred dollars a year to a thousand dollars a year? Then, who are those people that may become the kind of people that would be relevant for a campaign that would give $10,000 donations, $50,000 donations, or even million dollar donations? So the way that you might talk to individuals who you want to acquire at 25 bucks on social media sharing your vision and the impact of a specific project is even different than how you might talk to a person who s been giving for ten years and you simply want to grow them to a new level versus the person that you want to make a transformative gift. So there s the marketing outside which is I think was your original question which I put blank and completely ignore which is how do we find – and that s done through: What is the typical type of persona of an individual who s attracted to this organization? And then using resources that exist on Facebook to take their own data and provide look alike audiences and also general targeting. But obviously, then there are multiple layers of marketing within the organization as a donor base as well.

Do they measure what the most effective channels are?

Jason: Yeah, they do and it s interesting because obviously digital marketing and email marketing has been around for quite a while but it s hard for medium size and large nonprofits to completely cut the cord from direct mail because it’s a cash generator. But what I ve seen in some large organizations, in one particular relief based organization that I ve worked with, is that the cash generation that came through direct mail which was strong which justified the continuing messaging in that regard, actually held the organization back because it was an organization that had a million records. I guess we should have thrown that out earlier as an organization even bigger, I didn t think of this. And their core message was built around a direct response ask, a monthly ask, an annual ask. And so of these million people, you could imagine that there s a certain percentage of them that have the capacity to do a lot more. But they were stuck in this sort of “direct response, urgent, next 25 bucks, this project here” mode that really prevented them from casting the big vision of solving huge problems in regions that caused millions of dollars that could have attracted a different kind of investment from people. And that s a tough thing about organizations is you have to be responsible. Another difference with for profits base is there s a certain understanding that: “Hey, if you put a certain amount of money in the marketing and sales engine, you re going to get a certain amount of return out of it.” That mindset has to be even sort of further calibrated inside the nonprofit because there s a limited budget that exists. One, they re trying to get as much money to the field and making an impact. But two, now we have organizations that scrutinize the percentage of dollars that actually makes it to the field. There is this general sense that you have to keep operational costs at a level so when someone says, Hey, we want to move some direct response, direct mail dollars over to some media buys on Facebook.” There s a turf war because they know money comes in that way but there s not a lot of new money that they spend in the new areas. So those are some of the challenges that people face in terms of finding new audiences.

Scott: But it s interesting, you did talk a little bit about the percentage of money that actually makes it to the field versus the operational cost. I had a friend recently, she died of breast cancer and she was never a fan of the pink shoes and gloves all over the football field because she s like, Hey, all these money goes to awareness. I m dying and I need a cure. So that was always a conversation topic. But in terms of what you talked about the competition and the different channels, you know, we ve gotten and I m going to go back to what you re talking about with the urgent need. So what I see if I get on Facebook, I see the urgent need of one, there s all these Kickstarter projects or someone needs to cover medical expenses or something that just pops up. It looks like a high percentage of them are successful are maybe the ones that just reach me are. How is that affecting everything? It s easy to give $5, $10 immediately.

Are the nonprofit guys catching on to the Kickstarter tactic?

Jason: Oh, for sure and some of the more sophisticated ones are. There are a number of groups doing it. I think the more immediate and intimate that organizations can make the impact and the sense of connection to what s happening is a good thing. The thing that your friend has with you as a potential donor that you see her suffering from a certain condition or you might know somebody who s doing a Kickstarter campaign because it s a friend of a friend. The benefit of that is that there is some immediacy and intimacy to that idea that I can give 25 bucks and I know that s going to solve a particular problem. And with the nonprofit, they don t necessarily benefit from that so they have to use marketing to create that immediacy and intimacy as it relates to the way that they tell the story and the way that they can show how particular monies go to make particular impact. Usually, the good organizations are able to do that in a creative, narrative form and using channels like Facebook and Instagram, and frankly YouTube, to essentially take advantage of their message in those channels in such a way that it s filling your feed because you are connected to that type of giving in some way. Just like the boots that you searched on Amazon are also coming up in your Facebook feed. So, there is but that s still a big opportunity because many organizations like I still are still saying the direct mail and email and what s next. So they sometimes need to be let there a little bit.

What is one of the most effective campaigns or organizations that you worked with and what did they do to raise a lot more money or get more donors?

Jason: Yeah, I had a lot of them. I think one of my most favorite is because it s not self-congratulatory in order to play into the sad story. I ll tell in a minute probably because I know you re going to ask that one, too. The first time that I went to visit at Oregon State University to meet with the athletic fundraising department, I got there a little early and I was inside Gil Coliseum Arena. It s an older building and inside it s not super attractive. The arena itself where the basketball arena is as beautiful but around, but they had all this really cool black and white iconic photography of student athletes. It was interesting because the student athletes weren t pictured in their athletic gear; they were pictured in regular, normal environments so sort befitted their individual story and their individuality. Then there was a little blurb about each of them or what they were studying, what they hope to be when get out of school and all these things. So I walked around the whole arena and read at least 25 of them. By the time I walked into the meeting, I kind of intuitively knew what the message they were trying to say. It s when I get into the room, I said, Tell me about those photography out there. Todd Stansbury, who s now the athletic director at Georgia Tech was the number two guy there, told me the story about Everyday Champions. Everyday Champions was an attempt to provide a context where student athletes were more than just athletes. They were students and preparing in very practical ways for life after college, life after football or athletics. That was more than just a slogan, you could tell just sort of I asked them at that time, I said, Well, if you don t come into this building, how do people know about this? He said, Well, I think that s why you re here. We ended up doing a number of different things for them. One of our early campaigns for them was an acquisition campaign that probably tripled any response that we d ever seen in the athletic fundraising space. It was a multichannel initiative where we combined email, search, social, some re-marketing, and I think there might have been some offline media that they provided to augment the process. In about in about a week s time, leading up to football season, we had about a thousand donors make their first-time gifts to the organization. What was interesting was I think 30% of those donors, I m probably getting the percentage wrong, but it was a high percentage of those donors was outside their original data set. In other words, because of the push that we were able to do in through re-marketing and social advertising, we were actually able to find donors outside their existing file which is a big deal for any nonprofit but especially universities who try to maintain record with all their alumni and that s just hard to do overtime. So that was incredibly proud because I felt like in that particular campaign, we inherited the good story and we successfully told that story in a way that we know. We did a bunch of things for them over time that was also successful. But that was one that we were very proud of because you know, if you don t have a good story to tell, you can apply any kind of marketing tactic that relates to an optimize email strategy, good Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, media buy strategy and you re going to fall flat. So that was an exciting one and that s one of my favorites.

What was a campaign that did not work?

Jason: I cringe even a little bit to tell the story. I won t be specific to the school, but it was an ACC school. This particular school came to us and told us of the history of what was going on in the athletic department in terms of donor engagement. It wasn t strong and sort of the transitions that were happening and so there s just this sort of lackluster story. They didn t really have a clear vision or thing to stand on like in everyday champions or successful football, because keep in mind, Oregon State University is not like the University of Alabama and they re just hanging national championships in the wall. This is Oregon State University in the shadow of the University of Oregon and they were able to successfully tell that story in that context. There s similar situation with the ACC school and we cautioned them at the beginning that you probably will not see the results that we ve seen with other schools. They were convinced this was an important effort for them to take and we applied the same techniques that we used at Oregon State and it was a massive failure. Our tactics getting better every day in applying multichannel efforts of marketing and acquiring donors and getting the message out and extending the list but in this case, unfortunately, we didn t have a good story to tell. No matter how good of the story that we made our creative department was able to do, it landed flat on an alumni base that was frustrated. Granted, did we look at ourselves and say, Was the video too long, or did we not tell enough? You know, we dissected ourselves 900 different ways on that one and I m certain there are things we could have done better. But those are fun to you know. Again, it just goes back to Fundraising is about relationships and transformation, and if there s no transformation happening, then it s hard to sell that no matter how good your strategy is.

Did you just tell those guys to win more football games?

Jason: The conversation was really me listening a lot and them being upset so those are some of those where you just have to take it and work for it. You learn. You learn that there are some jobs you just should say no to because being able to someone: “We can help you with this,” but you d be better off spending the next 18 months building the foundation and cast and vision for what the transformation that s actually happening here because people think there s nothing happening here. That s the reality.

How far behind do you think nonprofits are with digital marketing or are they?

Jason: They re behind. So are a lot of for-profit mailing lists that I sit on. You know, Dollar Shave Club stands out to me because they still use email incredibly effectively. I know that I m a victim because I signed up for their razors. They have me on in a marketing funnel and every time I respond it trigger, then there is something else. But the thing is what happens that comes to them is that they re saying things like: Hey, are we sending you too many razors? Who says that ? No one says that. Oh, you have. Yes, take that to two months. But then the next month is, Hey, have you seen our new soap? I m like, No. I ll try out that. Have you seen our new shampoo? Have you seen our new face scrub or whatever? So I ve gone from razors to shaving cream to soap and now body wash. And so they have moved me down this path by throwing out free offers and things. So there are still are organizations that when you get an email from someone, you feel like they re doing you a favor. I feel like most emails I get from most organizations nonprofits including is not doing me a favor, it s a burden. An email has become this incredibly cluttered place that we call work and now where we do to get away from work, we go to Facebook, 13 times a day for 26 seconds or whatever it is. And it s interesting because at least anecdotally from my perspective when I see ads on Facebook, they re so hyper-intelligent to who I am that I fell like it s a favor.

I was searching on Amazon for boots one week, I didn t pull the trigger and then Facebook threw up an ad for that same boot but 20% off. I made the purchase. I feel like that almost does me favor. Where nonprofits can slip in, is if they can like smart businesses are doing, find out my interest and passions, what I post about, what I talk about in terms of my personal philanthropic interest and target me with those similar advertisings that allow me to see into things that I m not currently aware of to be reminded of things that I am aware of but need to do more. That s a huge opportunity because that space again is more still an entertainment space than a business or work space like we feel like email is. To me that s the horizon. And I think, I ll give you one other illustration if you can let me chat just for a little bit longer unless you have something else you wanted to ask me in that regard.

Scott: No. You re on a roll. You ve gone from athletics to razors, to soap and body wash.

Jason: I should probably be taking Adderall right now. I won t get these numbers correct but we ve just recently run numbers on several universities. So think about these ten years or even five years ago. You talked to a university or nonprofit, they have a million records. Well, they probably have half Let s just use Oregon Statea University for example. So they have 600,000 living alumni. They have mailing addresses for 475,000 of them and then they have emails for 260,000 of them. The workable data sets are mere percentages of your known alumni base. Well, think of most large university brands and even some big nonprofit brands like Compassion International or Operation Smile or The American Cancer Society. I mean, these brands are big and respected, right? So when you go into the world of Facebook and you can break down the audiences that not only identifies as alumni, not only identify as fans of the football program, fans of Notre Dame in general. You start counting the amount of people that you can reach just on people who flag themselves as loyal fans of that institution, your 260,000 email number jumps to 5 million globally. Now you re realistic base of talking to people with passion toward an institution can expand immensely in terms of your advertising. Now it s just, now you just have a new problem. We re going to focus on Europe this quarter with our media buys or whatever because the potential then to pull in a different kind of like – I told you the Oregon State example earlier, we were excited because some of our re-marketing efforts got people outside the data set. But those people primarily were probably alumni and friends of the organization. Now Facebook just expands the potential of that so much. There s so many things that you can do and augment with Google, Instagram and YouTube and sort of augmenting your strategies with video pre-roll advertising and other things, but at the end of the day, I think that s the big opportunity for nonprofits because the ability to get your good message out to more people who have a like-minded heart and passion for getting nets to people to prevent the mosquito problem in certain parts of the world is a whole another thing.

So basically just use the same tools that everybody else is using?

Jason: Well, exactly. And you know what, and the thing is one of the ways that and sometimes for profit businesses do this too. They ll bring consultants in and they ll say, Hey, we need to learn how to do X. That consultant will teach them and help develop and craft a strategy for them to solve X and then the company will go, Okay, now that we ve done that, we re going to do that ourselves. Nonprofits are good at that too. The good ones know that they need to bring some people in sometimes who have expertise in doing optimize email communications that would look more like Dollar Shave Club than some intrusive communication that clogs up your email and how to navigate the world that the particularization and power of social spaces as well. They re going to figure those things out and some of the good ones are probably onto it more than I know.

What would you do with your time if you weren t doing all of this?

Jason: There s a little general store, I would hope, it s not too far from here and it s actually across the street from where I caught the bus as a kid in the morning when I was in grammar school. It s got this beautiful, old gas pumps out front that doesn’t work anymore but they should never be moved, and it s got a side yard where you could host mini-concerts and have the big barbecue smoker out there, I would like to own that place and be the ambassador of goodwill through food and music, and make a difference with some of the proceeds of that thing. It just sounds like something fantastic. So that s something I dream about. All the elements of those things fascinate me, running a general store and probably the least of it but the barbecue and music part for sure. And if it involves people and it makes a difference in people s lives then I m all about it.

Scott: All right, I feel the Kickstarter project coming on pretty shortly.

Jason: I ve got your email address now so you ll be one of the first to get one if I do.

Scott: Perfect. See you hit a hot button with me, right? You found my passion which is barbecue.

Jason: Nice.

Scott: So let s how you did that. You better get to it.

Jason: Well, you re in Texas so I just assumed that came with the birthright of sorts, right?

Scott: Yeah, it really does and then we get snobby about our barbecue. I can t go anywhere else and buy barbecue because it s just better down here or over here.

Jason: Well, I know were lengthening this thing probably than you wanted but one of the reasons I now have this passion personally for barbecuing is we lived in Texas for 13 years. I was at your fingertips all the time. Even friends were wonderful connoisseurs so I never felt like I had to dive into it personally. But here, there s a void and there are places you can get good barbecue but not Texas style barbecue per se in abundance and I m like someone needs to bring that beauty to this region because it s a wonderful thing.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/marketing-your-cause-jason-mitchell/feed/0Value-based products and services sell themselves. Companies work to provide more for less and in exchange will sell a product or service so customers get more value than the price paid for the service. What if you are trying to solicit funds for your cause? Jason Mitchell is an expert in nonprofit marketing and fundraising [...]NoNo37:44Scott Kingcausal marketing, nonprofit, strategyHow the CMO Killed My Deal – Josh Steimlehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/josh-steimle/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/josh-steimle/#respondThu, 10 Nov 2016 14:00:27 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2637

Josh Steimle wanted to read a book about CMOs to brush up his sales skills. He searched for “CMOs at Work” since he had seen other “… at Work” books and couldn’t find one. This search led him to the publishers website and eventually to a form reading “write for us.”

Josh filled out the form and in a matter of weeks had a contract and an advance to pen the “CMOs at Work” book.

This episode describes what is in the book and some of the CMOs interviewed for the book. Josh talks about some of the things they said and how the 29 interviews exceeded his expectations.

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Where are you these days? Where are you calling from?

Josh: I am in Shenzhen, China which is just across the border from Hong Kong. It s on the southern part of China.

What took you to China? How long you been there?

Josh: I was in Hong Kong for 3 years and then my wife and I just moved to Shenzhen about 2 months ago and we came over here because we’re actually adopting a child from China and that just got us thinking about being over here. But we moved here and I opened an office of my agency in Hong Kong, that’s going great, and now I’m in Shenzhen and we’re opening another office here and the opportunity is just fantastic here.

Scott: Great. I’ve never been there so if I go I will definitely stop by and visit and hopefully I can meet your new family member.

Describe to us why you even started writing Chief Marketing Officers at Work.

Josh: I wrote the book because it was an accident actually. I was in a meeting about two years ago and we were supposed to sign a deal. So I run a digital marketing agency, we had this client, we had negotiated everything with them and I walked into this meeting to sign a contract with the client and as we went to sign the contract, there was this new woman who came into the meeting, I’ve never met her before and she introduced herself and said “Hey, I m Hope Frank. I’m the new CMO here and everything is on hold until I do an audit and figure out everything that’s going on with marketing at this company.

So she killed our deal and I walked out of that meeting thinking, Oh, man, I wish I had showed up to this meeting a week earlier and then we could have this signed before this new CMO came in and squashed everything. [Josh says he and Hope are good friends now] So about a month later, my team and I, we were together and we were talking about our personas, and who we go after, who we sell to as an agency, and I said, We really need to think about these CMOs because a lot of times we re pitching to these CMOs or they get involved and they can just kill our deals. They make or break our deals. So we should understand CMOs better and maybe we should reach out to them more. And because I’m a writer, we decide that I should write a book on digital marketing for CMOs that helps CMOs to understand what we do. That way will be able to reach out to them and do some thought leadership in the CMO s face. A few years earlier, I had read a book called Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston who s with Y Combinator. I knew there were other books in this series like CIOs at Work , and Programmers at Work , and Lawyers at work so I thought, Well, it s part of my research to write this digital marketing for CMOs book and that will help me to understand who I m writing the book to. But I couldn’t find CMOs at Work, and looking for it led me back to the publisher’s website and they said on the website, Write for us. And I looked through the website, I couldn’t find the CMOs at Work book so I emailed the publisher and said, Hey, I want to write this book CMOs at Work for you. And they gave me an advance, a contract, and that’s how I got the deal to go write this book Chief Marketing Officers at Work.”

How long did that process take in from filling out the form in the website and then getting an advance?

Josh: It was just a matter of a few weeks. It was just me sending them a proposal and then there was a little bit of back and forth but they approved it pretty quickly.

Did they give you any type of road map based on the other books or was this just a free form?

Josh: It’s a pretty loose format but the only thing I had to stick to was that it’s interviews so they said we need 15 to 20 interviews of CMOs and each interview should be about an hour long or come out to so many pages. I wanted to get 30 CMOs into it. I started working on it and I just felt like 15 or 20 perspectives wasn’t enough so I was shooting for 30, I ended up getting 29. So that’s what the book is. This is just one interview after another. I tried to ask more or less the same questions to each CMO because I thought people would be interested in seeing how the different CMOs responded to the same questions but the conversations did end up being a little bit free-flowing but that s the book. It s these interviews, they’re pretty much verbatim with minor editing for clarity and getting rid of ums and stuff like that, but that’s what it is. It’s just a bunch of interviews slapped together.

How exactly did you select all the CMOs that you did?

So I made a big list of several hundred CMOs, I targeted certain companies, I ranked these companies according to which companies I thought would be most interesting or most recognizable, that were hot because they’re in the news and such. I ranked all these companies according to these criteria then I had somebody go do research, find who the VP of marketing or the CMO was at each of these companies. I then started reaching out to them and at first I reached out to a lot of CMOs because I want to get these interviews done fast and then as the book was coming to its conclusion, I couldn’t reach out to so many because if I only had two spots and ten responded then I was in trouble. So that was the process of going through selecting the CMOs. And I had a few contacts as well so I had a contact at Spotify and that allowed me to get in with Seth Farbman and interview him early on. So there were some contacts that helped but a lot of these, I just reached out cold and was able to get them in.

Was there somebody that you really wanted to interview and you are unable to contact them?

Josh: There were several that I tried to contact and I just couldn’t get through to them and I had to get creative in some cases and I thought, Who has an incentive to help me get interviews with these CMOs? And I thought, Well, PR firms do. If the CMO from a company ends up in a book then that’s great, that’s a success story for the PR firm. So I reached out to a few of the PR firms and said, Hey, I’m trying to get a hold of the CMO at this company, and I can’t get through to them, and they’re going to be in this book and it’s going to be great, and they re going to get publicity from it. Can you help me out with this? And I had a few PR firms that really went to work and were able to get those contacts for me that I wasn’t able to get any other way.

That is a good trick and they did that on their own dime, right?

Josh: Right. They made it their job to get that done and it was great. I didn’t have to pay anybody to do that. But I’ll tell you, the one tool that helped me more than anything else which surprised me was actually LinkedIn in-mails. I was able to get about half of the interviews from the book just by using LinkedIn in-mail and sending a LinkedIn message to the CMO and they responded directly.

Did you say anything specific in your LinkedIn In Mail or just, Hey, I’m writing a book and I want to talk to you.

Josh: I leveraged the interviews that I had already done so and I leveraged the credibility I had from writing for Forbes and other publications so I would start off the note saying, Hey, my name is Josh Steimle. I’ve written a bunch of marketing articles for Forbes and these other publications. I’ve written this book and I’ve already interviewed Seth Farbman from Spotify and Brian Kenny from the Harvard Business School and I’d love to include you in this book. So right within the first sentence, I tried to establish my credibility very quickly to let them know, Hey, this isn’t just some random guy writing some random book,” reaching out to you. I’ve got some experience doing this and I’ve got some heavy hitters already involved in this and I think that helped a lot for getting some of the interviews.

Who should really read the CMOs at Work and why?

Josh: I think the people who would find the book most helpful and most fascinating is going to be anybody who thinks they might be a CMO someday or they want to rise in the ranks to be that top marketer in their organization. Those people are going to find it fascinating because this is the fly-on-the-wall perspective of what everybody else is doing. I think a lot of times when we’re put into a leadership position, we think, I don’t know if I’m doing this the right way or not. Maybe I’m doing everything right and I just don’t know it. Maybe I’m doing everything wrong and I don’t know it. This is a great way to see inside the minds of all these different CMOs and saying, Oh, okay that’s how they’re doing it, maybe I am doing it right, or maybe there’s something I can learn here and maybe I need to change the way I structure my team or the way I get new tools or the way that I manage campaigns.” So it’s great for those people. I think it’s also great for anybody who sells to the CMO or to a marketing department because these people explain how they think, how they buy systems, tools, software, how they invest their marketing dollars and so anybody who s selling like a PR firm, an ad agency, a marketing agency, any of these people who deal with marketers as their customer is also going to find this really interesting I think.

What’s some of the value that you got out of it through the interview process? So what did you learn from some of these people?

Josh: One of the things that surprised me from doing these interviews is I thought I’m going to go into these interviews, these are people who have, they have long careers in marketing. And as an agency owner, I’m used to going in and pitching people and when they’ve got a lot of experience, they’ve been around for a long time, they’re often a little bit out of date. Their marketing perspective is from when they were growing up in the ranks and doing all the heavy lifting. And now that they’re in management, they might be a little bit out of touch. And what surprised me from this book was how on top of things these marketers were. Even marketers who just retired like John Costello, he just retired from Dunkin’ Donuts so he’s had a long career, and yet this is a guy who’s heavily invested in mobile and technology and is on top of the stuff and I’m interviewing him. And I m thinking, Man, this guy really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to technology. And the same with Linda Boff at GE and a lot of these other CMOs, they’re really in the nitty-gritty with the data, with the software tools that they’re using, they re really into social media and I was just surprised how on top of the technology, and data, and the details, and the cutting edge of marketing some of these people are.

Do you think that is because they just have a personal interest in staying on top of the technology or is it more of the consumerization of IT?

Josh: I think it’s both of those things but I think a lot of it is that the marketing role today is becoming so results-oriented so people have to get into the data and they have to get in the technology to get the results that people are demanding. Marketing used to be more of an art form. I mean you look at the Don Draper days, back in the day when you could get a focus group together, brainstorm in a room, come up with a campaign, you put this campaign out there, nobody really knows if it works or not, but you win some awards and use that as a proxy for saying this was a successful campaign. That’s not the way marketing is anymore. It s you have hypothesis and hypothicize and you go out and you test to those hypotheses, you do experiments, you look at the data, you measure everything. Marketing is this intensely data-driven numbers game and yet there’s still that creative side as well coming up with the different hypotheses and experiments you’re going to run. And these marketers, I think they’re on social media and they’re into tech because they re just into it, that s just what they like. But I think they’re also in the position they are because they like those things. That’s what’s allowed them to rise up through the ranks because they are focused on results and data and getting real results rather than just winning awards.

Did you stump anybody with any questions?

Josh: I did not stump any, but I mean, I had some people that I wanted to interview and they were hesitant and didn’t want to be interviewed. I think there was a bit of a tough selection bias there that the people I was able to get through to are people who are more comfortable speaking and just sitting down for an interview like this. But now these people are really bright and quick with the answers and really they were stumping me, they were scaring me because I was sitting there asking these questions, I was thinking, man, these people are really on top of things and I started getting a little bit of impostor syndrome feeling like “Man, they’re going to see through me and see that I don’t know that much about marketing compared to what they know. So it was it was definitely the opposite experience where I think I was more stumped and scared than they were.

So what scared you?

Josh: I just remember I was doing the interview with, let’s see, I think it was might have been Michael Mendenhall at Flex, I’m not sure who it was, but I remember I was doing one of the interviews and he started bringing up things in technology and marketing and I pride myself on being up on tech and marketing, and he was just talking about things and saying, Oh, you know, this, this, this, right? And I’m like, No, actually I’ve never heard about what you’re talking about. So there are these moments where I thought, Man, I thought I was pretty knowledgeable in these areas but this guy is schooling me. And he’s talking about tools that I’ve never used or even heard of and he’s talking about concepts that I’m not familiar with and here I am running a marketing agency, I’m trying to sell to these people and I’m realizing some of these people are really deep into this stuff and they know about things I’ve never even heard of.

Scott: Well, you know, at a big company they have lots of resources. They have way more resources than you do as running your own agency. That necessarily wouldn’t surprise me. but what surprised me that he rattled all that stuff off with you there and it kind of caught you off-guard but that’s interesting. It shows that you know they’re really paying attention to what you talked about in terms of making decisions based on data and it is much more data-driven and since we’re creating more data. It’s much more easier to do that and you see the CMOs kind of going to all that data-driven decision making because you can just create more data, you can do small short-term test and things like that.

Were there any consistencies in the answers of the interviews?

Josh: Well, going back to this issue of data, something that came up with a lot of the interviews. I asked questions about big data and how they were using data. A lot of them talked about the importance of data and how much more data there is in marketing today than there used to be. But, there is this common theme of not relying on the data too much. A lot of the CMOs pointed two examples of where data could lead people astray into the wrong decisions and they said that there’s still the need for human involvement in the common sense to look at the data and say, Here’s what the data is saying but are we asking the right questions? Are we interpreting this data the right way? Are we coming to the right conclusions based on this data? And so they are pointing out that you can’t automate this marketing process 100%. You’ve got to have that human element in there, otherwise that data I can lead you into trouble.

Scott: There is a whole lot of automation and you do have to have a human element because we are selling to humans. Once it becomes just the machine-to-machine interactions like a chat bot or anything like that. You can see always through that and so you don’t want that kind of impression on your customer because they’re just going to go away because it’s easy to go buy something else.

Do the CMOs really know their customers?

Josh: Yeah. And another thing that came through with a lot of the interviews is that these CMOs are people who get their customer. They understand who the customer is. They re in touch with the customer and so this word empathy was something that kept coming up with me during the interview that these people. They can empathize with their customer. They get their customer. They know what their customer’s life is like and what they feel and what they want and what their motivations are. It was more and more clear as the book went on that the reason these marketers are successful is because of that connection they have to their customers. Often they are the customer of their own product that they’re selling and that’s something that’s come up within my agency as well. When I’m out hiring people, one of the things I look at is just do these people just get it? Do they just get the customer that they understand the perspective of the customer? If a marketer can understand the customer, then they understand what they need to provide to that customer. What message they’re going to respond to. How they want the product delivered to them or marketed to them. that s such a core part of marketing and always has been and always will be, and that’s not something that’s ever going to change. That simple concept just kept coming through over and over again that if you get the customer, if you empathize with the customer, you can work out everything else.

Josh: Well, so the book is selling now. It s on Amazon and Audible so you can get it in Kindle print, Audible format and I’m doing some speaking engagements surrounding the book and I’m putting out content as well through my blog at joshsteimle.com so I continue to do research on the role of the CMO and I put out content through my blog on that. And it’s opened my eyes to this role and the future of the role and it’s interesting to follow it now through publications like CMO.com and some other marketing publications out there that really focus on the role of the CMO. Forbes has a lot of articles about the role of the CMO but it’ll be interesting to see where this goes. Here in Asia, marketing is let s say not the highest priority for a lot of companies. The attitude here is if you build a great product people will buy it. And saw a lot of these large companies over here do not have a CMO, they don’t have a VP of marketing. You go look at the management structure, there’s nobody handling marketing. I’m really interested in seeing if I can push that a little bit here in Asia in the media to bring more attention to marketing and get some of these companies to put that in as one of their top level management positions. I would love to see Asian companies make progress that way.

Is there any type of help that you would want from anybody listening to this podcast? What can we do for you?

Josh: Anytime that I write a lot of articles still so a lot of my writing ends up in Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, Mashable, TechCrunch and other publications. I’m always looking for interesting statistics or data that relates to marketing and especially to the role of the chief marketing officer. If anybody has access to interesting data or stats or case studies, I’m always looking for that as source material for the writing I’m doing.

If you weren’t writing and if you weren’t doing the digital agency and consultancy, what else would you be doing with your time?

Josh: Well, I am doing a bunch of other things with my time so I have an easy answer for that. One of the things I’m working on right now is my next book is going to be called The Influencer Inc. It’s a book about how people can create their legacy and personal brand and develop themselves as influencers or thought leaders. So it talks about how to get book deals, how to get into paid speaking arrangements and how to get into the major media. I m working on that right now and I have a free course up on my website to help people get started building their influence. This actually started because of the CMO book too because as I was writing it, I got in touch with a CMO who then retired and came back to me and said, Hey, can you help me with this personal branding aspect, and that led to this new book and the courses that I’m setting up on that topic.

Scott: That is really, really cool. We ll definitely link back to all those resources that you referenced in the show notes and hopefully people will take you up for that offer and there’s always data out there. Maybe someone just doesn’t know where to send it and we ll put your contact information in there as well. And I just really wanted to thank you again, Josh, for joining me even though we did have some connection problems from US to China, but we ll work through that through the editing process, but thanks again, and I really, really appreciate your time.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/josh-steimle/feed/0Josh Steimle wanted to read a book about CMOs to brush up his sales skills. He searched for “CMOs at Work” since he had seen other “… at Work” books and couldn’t find one. This search led him to the publishers website and eventually to a form reading “write for us.” Josh filled out the [...]NoNo27:47Scott KingSocial Selling vs. Social Prospecting - Trish Bertuzzihttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/social-selling-vs-social-prospecting-trish-bertuzzi/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/social-selling-vs-social-prospecting-trish-bertuzzi/#respondThu, 03 Nov 2016 13:00:55 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2594If you are selling technology, chances are someone in your organization is saying, “social selling.” But, what really is “social selling?” I recently talked with Trish Bertuzzi, CEO of The Bridge Group (@BridgeGroupInc) and author of The Sales Development Playbook, about social selling and many other topics in her book related to sustaining a sales business. Trish offers opinions on how to recruit and retain sales development or inside sales people. She then discusses how you should lead them and retain them since they play an important role in the buyer’s journey. We talk about what the future holds for this function in terms of B2B sales and digital marketing as bots and AI take over some of the buying process.

Contact Trish

Sponsors

What are some of the big takeaways from the sales development Playbook?

I think there’s a couple big takeaways but let me preface that we are sort of giving you the overall view of the book. The book is written for anyone in management that has a sales development team. Whether or not you have direct ownership of that team, really doesn’t matter because if sales owns it but you’re in marketing you still need sales development to maximize your demand generation efforts. I’ve written it with that sort of high-level view and I broke it into six core elements which are strategy, specialization, recruiting, retention, execution and leadership. Most companies are good at two and great another one or two but to really make sales development rock you have to execute flawlessly on all six. The book isn’t about theory it’s about execution and the whys of how you can implement sales development. At the highest level that’s what the book is about.

So the book is like a recipe for sales development?

Yes, it is a recipe but it’s a recipe where you can swap out ingredients. By that I mean not everyone’s business is the same. If I’m talking to salesforce.com not to give them the same advice I give a startup in the cybersecurity space. There are variables in play when we build out our sales development strategy and I help people identify those variables, think them through and then based on those variables create their own special recipe.

What is some of the feedback that you’ve heard from executives after reading the book at the start ups and of the large Salesforce type companies?

It’s interesting because I think the start ups get the most out of the first piece which is how do you figure out your strategy. I mean there are two flavors for sales development. There’s setting introductory meetings and then there is creating and qualified opportunities. Dramatically different strategies. People are often confused on which way they should go. In the first section helps people figure out what your strategy ought to be based on your variables. Start ups relate to that very well. Where I think later stage companies relate is in a couple key areas. First they like innovative ideas around recruiting and retention and execution. What are best practices around execution. I think there’s something in the book for everyone.

Who are the best recruits for sales development rep?

I think there’s some common denominators who makes a better sales development rep. Those would be someone who has curiosity. If you’re not curious about your buyers and how you help them build a better business, then you’re just going to be a human bot. That is a SPAM cannon and delivering boring messaging. If you’re curious about your buyer and you learn about your buyer, I think those are the kinds of people that make the best sales development reps. Those people combined with people with a desire to perfect their craft. Self learners — those are the people I think those two characteristics are great. Obviously they need to be organized articulate but the differentiators are curiosity and perfection of craft.

Where do you find these guys? What’s the most common tenure?

The average tenure is 1.4 years. The reason I know that, once again I’m looking at the silo of B2B tech, which is our specialty. We do research and if your listeners choose to go look at that research at BridgeGroupInc.com, they can download for free or 2016 metrics and compensation report. I think they were 353 companies that participated this year. I’m pretty rock-solid on what the tenure is. Where you find them is a more challenging question. Typically people are hiring SDR’s first or maybe second job out of college. How do you find those people? You’ve got to be super creative in how you find them. In the book, we tell you a couple different ways. Where we get really creative is in recommending things like having an Instagram strategy for recruitment as well as a Glassdoor strategy for recruitment. You do all the traditional things, but to stand out above the crowd you’ve got to be innovative.

How have the social media platforms influenced the sales development function?

When people talk about social selling, by the way is such a misnomer, social doesn’t sell, people do. Maybe we should be calling it social prospecting. I actually thought about trademarking at one point. When people refer to social selling, 95% of the time they are talking about LinkedIn. How do you use LinkedIn as part of your strategy? It really depends. I think LinkedIn, followed by Twitter, maybe followed by Facebook depending on who your buyers are. Therein lies the rub. You have to fish where your buyers swim. If your buyers aren t engaging on LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook or Instagram for that matter, you know your social strategy doesn’t make any sense. You have to be where they are. I think that’s point number one in any social strategy. Make no assumptions. Do your research and see where your buyers are. Once you have identified those channels, engaging with them on those channels is a critical success factor. By engaging I don’t mean pitching. I mean delivering valuable content. Participating in conversations that don’t necessarily lead down the path to you. Learning more about them. What are their challenges? What are they talking about? What events are they going to? What are they reading? Those are all things that should be part of a sales development strategy.

Do Sales Development Reps really know their buyer and can they engage on social if their tenure is only 1.4 Years?

Thank you for asking that question. There’s one of the biggest areas that concerns me about how we on board our sales development reps. As we bring them on board, once again they re first or second year of college, we tell them everything about our solution and we’re like, Have at it. In actuality, if you did really effective onboarding you would spend the first week or two not talking about what you do, but really educating those sales development reps on your buyers. For example, you’re selling to a CFO. What does a day in their life look like? What challenges do they face? How are they currently addressing those challenges? How are they measured? Then look all those other things I spoke about. What do they read? Where they are engaging on social? Finally, when your SDR understands the buyer, then you bring in your solution and tie it all together by saying this is how we help them. We’re often in onboarding putting the cart before the horse. In doing so, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.

Since we’re talking about a short tenure type person, are the consumers or the buyers smarter than a sales development rep?

Smarter is a tough term to define. If you mean are they more educated about the market and the potential Solutions, the answer is potentially, yes. I mean there’s no doubt that buyers are educating themselves. We have given them access to the tools and the data with which they can do so. I think that’s a real positive. At the same time, we also have access to data and tools that tells us more about them. As much as they’re self-educating, so should we as sellers be self educating about our potential buyers. Not only at company level, but at the personal level as well. We have the tools at our disposal that enable that.

Where do you point people to educate their SDRs?

You just led me down the path to self-promote, so I will go there. The Sales Development Playbook is a really great place to start. Yes, I wrote it for managers, but I think that resonates with reps as well. I’ve been contacted by many SDRs who found value in the book so I think that’s one place. Our research. Our blog. Our LinkedIn group. We own the largest inside Sales Group on LinkedIn called the Inside Sales Experts Group. It s 100% discussions. No spam allowed so lots of great conversations there. There are a number of vendors who are doing unbelievable work and educating SDRs. The information is at your fingertips you just need to go find it.

What about the phone? Do people use the phone anymore?

I think it’s making a huge comeback actually. I don’t know about you, but how do you feel about your inbox?

I read this article on how to organize your inbox. I have all of these labels and each label has a different follow-up action like waiting for a reply. I had this zero inbox strategy until I went out of town on a conference trip and it got backed up. A lot of times what I do when when people email me and I really want to talk to them, I tell him you’re going to have to call me. I can’t get it done. I can get more done in a conversation versus the email back and forth so phone guy first and foremost. Which is why I asked the question. I can get much more done and I get it from SDR perspective. I’m taking my job back 15 years now, I get the answer. I get the yes / no.

Exactly! I don’t think we need more pen pals in our lives. Email is now like nothing but white noise.I look at my inbox every day and I’m going to guess I get, I don’t know, hundred and fifty emails everyday. It’s just like oh my God leave me alone. You are delivering no value and you’re not telling me a story. Whereas my phone, I average 7 to 11 calls a day. But, I average a hundred and fifty email a day. So let’s say 80 of them are outreach. Where am I most likely to pay attention? Now having said that, I’m with you. Conversation leads to conclusions, right? You can’t handle objections on the email. You can’t really deliver value within the context. You know there’s content and then there’s context. They say content is King, context is a God. I got that from John Barrows. It’s a fabulous statement. It depends on how people want to communicate. Some people want to communicate via email. Some via the phone. Some via social. That’s why you have a blend of all these different media trying to reach your prospective buyers. At the same time, you need to be telling a cohesive story. It’s not a one-and-done. If you send me an email and I don’t respond. Then you send me another email to say I haven’t heard from you in regards to my first email, I literally want to punch you in the face. That bump email strategy is the most frustrating strategy on the face of the planet. Whoever is a proponent of that, please go away.

Yes, who is teaching these people to do that? That’s the worst because from a buyer s perspective it’s just negativity. You’re just you’re giving this negative attitude toward the person that is not contacting you at this point should be deleted from the internet.

There’s a couple vendors that are proponents of that. Here is what is wrong with it. One, it references a failed attempt. What are you going to just keep doing it until there’s 50 emails attached? I’m never going to respond. It proves that you’re not worth the effort. There is automation that’s doing that. I’m not worthy of you doing some research about me and delivering something that’s personalized? No. You are just going to put me in your bump strategy. Finally, I think it annoys me because it’s like, who’s the boss of me? You’re demanding my time and attention and you haven’t earned it. Get out of my inbox! Makes me crazy.

What you do in your spare time?

This is a really hard question for me. If I was not working what would I do? I would golf more. I’m a terrible golfer but I’m a passionate golfer. I said I would never write another book but I do have one in my head that I’m noodling on. I might I prove myself a liar. I d cook more. I don’t know I’d read more. I probably start another business. I love being an entrepreneur and I wanted my head that has to do with helping female entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/social-selling-vs-social-prospecting-trish-bertuzzi/feed/0If you are selling technology, chances are someone in your organization is saying, “social selling.” But, what really is “social selling?” I recently talked with Trish Bertuzzi, CEO of The Bridge Group (@BridgeGroupInc) and author of The Sales Development Playbook, about social selling and many other topics in her book related to sustaining a sales business. [...]NoNo24:05Scott Kinginside sales, social selling, strategyFollowing Your Passion – Melanie Ofenlochhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/following-your-passion-melanie-ofenloch/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/following-your-passion-melanie-ofenloch/#respondThu, 27 Oct 2016 13:00:51 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2546Melanie Ofenloch ( @DallasWineChick ) was a successful marketing executive at one of the largest marketing firms and saw social media as a new frontier. She wanted to learn what it could do for her clients so she jumped on Twitter. Tweeting for a couple of months, Melanie found her only followers were people working for her. She wanted more interactions than of those that already knew her.

After her first attempt fell short of expectations, Melanie started tweeting about wine. Her following grew as a result and after 1600 followers, she started her Dallas Wine Chick blog. Creating Dallas Wine Chick fulfilled a personal need and a passion for wine. The blog took off and has recently been named one of the top 100 wine blogs. Dallas Wine Chick is now a sought after influencer in the wine world and takes Melanie all over the world to taste and write about wine.

Listen in to my conversation with Melanie and take her advice on following your passion!

Questions During Episode

You were a successful marketing executive then you started a blog about wine. Why wine?

Why did you start the blog? What did you think you were missing at work?

What finally pushed you to start? Was there a certain event or person that pushed you?

Who do you ask about wine?

What is the best wine you ever had?

Any overrated ones that come to mind?

How did you pick the name Dallas Wine Chick? Women don’t like being called chicks, or do they?

When people contact you about wine what do they ask?

When people contact you about marketing or PR what do they need?

What is your advice to others that have an itch but don’t know where to start?

What did people say when you started it?

How do you market the blog?

Do you do all of the marketing yourself?

What did you have to learn?

What would you do differently?

How would you advise others if they have an interest and want to start publicizing?

Sponsors

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/following-your-passion-melanie-ofenloch/feed/0Melanie Ofenloch ( @DallasWineChick ) was a successful marketing executive at one of the largest marketing firms and saw social media as a new frontier. She wanted to learn what it could do for her clients so she jumped on Twitter. Tweeting for a couple of months, Melanie found her only followers were people working [...]NoNo26:52Scott Kingbranding, TwitterHow to Sell to the CIO – Sven Gerjetshttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-sell-to-the-cio-sven-gerjets/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-sell-to-the-cio-sven-gerjets/#respondThu, 20 Oct 2016 01:00:24 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2596If you are in IT sales, you want to sell to the CIO. You want to sell to the ultimate decision maker and close the deal. But, you need to be prepared when you get there, really prepared.

Sven Gerjets (@SvenGerjets) is the former CIO at Time Warner Cable. At Time Warner Cable, Sven helped transform an IT organization preparing for an acquisition by Charter Communications. Prior to Time Warner Cable, Sven had stints at Pearson, DirecTV and Symantec enabling sales, marketing and ecommerce.

In this episode Sven and I talk about how to get to the CIO, how to prove the value when you get here and what moves his needle. Sven gives insights into how Customer Experiences are evolving to purely digital experiences faster than we are enabling them. This gives rise to the new CEO, Chief Experience Officer. The Chief Experience Officer is a combination of all of the C-suite measuring the effectiveness of on-line selling systems and digital customer experiences as sales people are redeployed into other areas.

Listen in and take notes to what the number one thing Sven says a sales and marketing person needs to do to effectively communicate and get to the CIO.

Questions During Episode

What are your next moves after being CIO of Time Warner?

How are you are you helping companies in your advisory role?

Are you helping them with product roadmap? Messaging?

What are startups having trouble with when selling to the enterprise?

What timeframe of pain point is worth researching?

What is your opinion on the content marketers are putting out?

What is the best way to get to a CIO?

What was the best method to get to you?

What is your favorite method to get peer referrals?

What do other CIOs ask of you?

What would you do differently in managing your social network?

What is your opinion on social media for selling to the enterprise?

Do CIOs need to promote themselves on-line?

Do you think CIOs use social media?

Where is the talent shortage?

How do the CIO and the CMO view the customer experience?

What is the Chief Experience Officer?

What problems to mobile devices create in corporate IT?

What advice would you give a sales or marketing person trying to talk to a new CIO?

Sponsors

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-sell-to-the-cio-sven-gerjets/feed/0If you are in IT sales, you want to sell to the CIO. You want to sell to the ultimate decision maker and close the deal. But, you need to be prepared when you get there, really prepared. Sven Gerjets (@SvenGerjets) is the former CIO at Time Warner Cable. At Time Warner Cable, Sven helped [...]NoNo41:53Scott Kingchief experience officer, cioFire Your Schwag – Jignesh Shahhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/fire-your-schwag-jignesh-shah/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/fire-your-schwag-jignesh-shah/#respondThu, 13 Oct 2016 13:00:03 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2547

Marketers constantly look for ways to influence our decisions and spend billions of dollars every year on advertising and useless schwag in order to do so. Expert marketers know how to influence people to obtain new customers and evolve quickly to stay ahead of competition. Studying human behavior and decision-making processes led Jignesh Shah on a new digital path on how to influence others.

Jignesh Shah is the chief executive officer of Rybbon. Rybbon is a digital gifting platform enabling marketers to deliver customized electronic gifts like gift cards and digital content. Jignesh launched Rybbon to solve a recurring problem associated with incentivizing customers and prospects. Incentives today are predominantly physical items like pens, shirts, cups and many other items you pick up at conferences or sales booths. These physical items don t fit well with digital channels we use to consume services and Jignesh says you should change your way of thinking.

In this episode I talk with Jignesh on why he started Rybbon and what is his most difficult task. Jignesh explains how the company originated, a failure they overcame and how it became a success after modifying their tactics. Jignesh goes on to explain some of the data driven decisions the company makes and how that influences sales and marketing tactics at his company.

Questions During Episode

What does your company do?

What is an egift?

Can t I get a gift card directly from the retailer?

What is the problem you are trying to solve with this solution?

What feedback do you have from customers and gift recipients?

What other items are you looking to distribute in the future?

What is difficult about running your own company?

What data-driven decisions are you making?

Are there any failures you can talk about?

What did you learn about your failure and how did you modify it for success?

Contact Jignesh

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/fire-your-schwag-jignesh-shah/feed/0Marketers constantly look for ways to influence our decisions and spend billions of dollars every year on advertising and useless schwag in order to do so. Expert marketers know how to influence people to obtain new customers and evolve quickly to stay ahead of competition. Studying human behavior and decision-making processes led Jignesh Shah on [...]NoNo27:44Scott Kinggifts, hubspot, marketo, schwagApplying Virtual Reality – Jon Fullrichhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/applying-virtual-reality-jon-fullrich/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/applying-virtual-reality-jon-fullrich/#respondThu, 06 Oct 2016 13:00:34 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2545Jon Fullrich is the creative director at VLG Advertising. At VLG, Jon is creating virtual reality applications as sales and marketing tools for medical and hi-tech companies. In this episode Jon discusses how he got started in animation at Texas A&M and how this evolved into building augmented reality. He describes two applications, the production process and what customers say about using this method to sell more products and services.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/applying-virtual-reality-jon-fullrich/feed/0Jon Fullrich is the creative director at VLG Advertising. At VLG, Jon is creating virtual reality applications as sales and marketing tools for medical and hi-tech companies. In this episode Jon discusses how he got started in animation at Texas A&M and how this evolved into building augmented reality. He describes two applications, the production [...]NoNo23:34Scott KingNothing Sells Product Like a Good Product – Matt Hillyerhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/nothing-sells-product-like-a-good-product-matt-hillyer/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/nothing-sells-product-like-a-good-product-matt-hillyer/#respondThu, 29 Sep 2016 13:00:27 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2544Matt Hillyer has been making music for over 25 years. His career not only spans many decades but also different genres of music. Matt s early influencer, Jim Heath aka The Reverend Horton Heat, took him on the road when he was only 12 years old. Seeing Jim s work ethic and hearing rockabilly, kick-started Matt’s music endeavor. Matt formed the Lone Star Trio when he was 16 years old and started selling cassettes for $3 each out of the trunk of his car. Matt s rockabilly roots led him to country music where he now front s Eleven Hundred Springs and his own personal project.

In this episode Matt discusses the difficulty of maintaining a long career and life on the road. Matt talks how he has marketed himself grass-roots style using staple guns, copy shops, sticky fluids and social media.

Listen in and find out what one of Texas s hottest country music stars thinks about, family, time, art, attention and condensed milk.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/nothing-sells-product-like-a-good-product-matt-hillyer/feed/0Matt Hillyer has been making music for over 25 years. His career not only spans many decades but also different genres of music. Matt s early influencer, Jim Heath aka The Reverend Horton Heat, took him on the road when he was only 12 years old. Seeing Jim s work ethic and hearing rockabilly, kick-started Matt’s music endeavor. Matt [...]NoNo49:04Scott KingHow to Become a Successful Marketing Leader – Thomas Bartahttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-become-a-successful-marketing-leader-thomas-barta/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-become-a-successful-marketing-leader-thomas-barta/#respondThu, 22 Sep 2016 13:00:10 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2520Thomas Barta (@ThomasBarta) has consulted and marketed for over 20 years, in 14 industries, in 45 countries. A former McKinsey partner, Thomas conducts leadership research including the world s largest study, with over 68,000 executive assessments on what makes for an impactful CMO. His clients include many of the world s most prominent companies, including over two dozen from the Fortune 500.

He and Patrick Barwise recently authored The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader. During this episode, Thomas and I talk about his research of over 1200 CMOs and the conclusions formulating the 12 powers in the book and how to become a marketing leader.

Questions During Episode

What is your background and how did you get here?

Why do you think marketers aren’t perceived as being an important part of the business?

How long did it take to interview 1230 CMOs?

Are the respondents geographically diverse?

What did you expect to see from the survey data?

What conclusions surprised you about the survey data?

What are some of the activities marketers were performing outside of the value creation zone?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-become-a-successful-marketing-leader-thomas-barta/feed/0Thomas Barta (@ThomasBarta) has consulted and marketed for over 20 years, in 14 industries, in 45 countries. A former McKinsey partner, Thomas conducts leadership research including the world s largest study, with over 68,000 executive assessments on what makes for an impactful CMO. His clients include many of the world s most prominent companies, including over two dozen from the [...]NoNo30:35Scott KingleadershipHow to Build Social Media Relationships – Alan Seehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-build-social-media-relationships-alan-see/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-build-social-media-relationships-alan-see/#respondThu, 15 Sep 2016 13:00:48 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2517Forbes named Alan See ( @AlanSee ) one of the most influential CMOs on social media. He is one of the early adopters of both LinkedIn and Twitter and has been building his CMO advisory using his “Power Triangle.” Alan describes this triangle as a blog and using LinkedIn and Twitter to build relationships.

Alan describes his time when starting out in sales in the 1980s. The internet wasn’t used back then so he was able to see the entire social media evolution to advise companies big and small on how to grow their businesses. Even though there has been tremendous technological advancements in sales and marketing, Alan states one thing hasn’t changed when selling. We do business with people we know, like and trust.

Listen in on our conversation and then look for Alan and his wife in one of America’s amazing national parks.

Questions During Episode

How did you become listed as one of Top 50 Influential CMOs on Twitter?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-build-social-media-relationships-alan-see/feed/0Forbes named Alan See ( @AlanSee ) one of the most influential CMOs on social media. He is one of the early adopters of both LinkedIn and Twitter and has been building his CMO advisory using his “Power Triangle.” Alan describes this triangle as a blog and using LinkedIn and Twitter to build relationships. Alan describes his time when starting [...]NoNo24:15Scott Kingsocial media, TwitterGrowth Hacking with Jim Mackayhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-hacking-jim-mackay/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-hacking-jim-mackay/#respondThu, 08 Sep 2016 13:00:03 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2459Growth hacking is becoming a more popular term amongst modern day marketers. It is not a short cut or a way to cheat a system but it is a process of rapid experimentation across marketing channels. The goal is to identify the most effective, efficient ways to grow a business.

In this episode I talk with Jim Mackay (@canuckinco). Jim currently advises technology start-ups in the Colorado area via Scape, a tech accelerator program. Jim also serves as President of Impyrium. Impyrium produces industrial sensors and controls for unmanned vehicles like drones so they can safely be used for commercial applications.

Jim and his team recently found an interesting freely available dataset to use for his business. In our growth hacking case study, Jim explains the methods they used after obtaining the data and how this dataset jump started his pipeline with targeted prospects.

Contact Jim

Transcription

What are you doing lately? Are you at home? Are you on the road?

Jim: I m home. I m home a lot more than I have been in previous years but home is a good place. I m in Durango, Colorado working with a startup called Impyrium. We founded it back in September and we focus on sensor and control systems for commercial and industrial applications, which sounds really sexy but it is a lot of fun.

How is this different than other things you have worked on?

Jim: Yes. So this is the first — as you know I spent the last 30 years doing software in particular enterprise software and then the last 10 of that working with startups. This is the first hardware startup I ve been involved with. The co-founders are a couple of really smart engineers with skills in electrical engineering as well as mechanical engineering and we get to play with electronics all day and generate things on 3D printers and you know, get our hands dirty. So it s a lot of fun.

What are some of the immediate differences that maybe you expected and some that you didn t?

Jim: Well, with software you can go in very quickly and make a modification to something that isn t working right and essentially put it back out there, whether it s an app and you put an upgrade for an app or you just put a new version in the cloud. With hardware, you have to go through a full product recall so one of the biggest things with hardware is getting it right the first time. You still go through, you know, as a startup we still work on the lean model, you know, Eric Ries Lean model where we get in minimum viable product right and get it out to market. Even getting the MVP going is a bit of a challenge because you go through some design cycles which require you to source components and a lot of times those components come from overseas. You get them together. You test it. If it doesn t work right, you have to repeat that cycle. So the release cycles, if you will, are a lot longer and you don t want to get in a situation where you have a recall.

If you re just three guys trying to do this you obviously have, I would assume, a small budget for marketing?

Jim: Yeah. You would assume correctly. It s fairly small budget for marketing and you know, one of the additional challenges is when your two co-founders are engineers they don t necessarily understand how much work and how many resources have to go into marketing in order to get the promotion out there. They tend to think that it happens fairly easily. So it s a little bit of a challenge wrestling enough money out of the overall budget to do the marketing. So you do what you can to hack it out and you know, the number one metric with a small company is growth. So growth hacking has become a term in the startup world for probably the last couple of years and we truly follow a lot of, you know, what is considered growth hacking in order to raise awareness, get out brand out there, generate interest in our products and push customers across the line.

Are you guys doing anything like growth hacking? Did you find anything interesting to help leverage your business?

Jim: Yes. So I think your definition of growth hacking is dead on. It s using the materials or the sources that you have available to you or that are available either free or cheap. You know, in our case with it being hardware it’s a bit of a different challenge. The number one thing — we basically to this point have been working in stealth mode and we have one customer who we worked on now for three different projects. As a result of working with this customer we have created and invented some pretty cool stuff which we ve been lucky enough to be able to retain the rights and the IP too that we have then applied for patents and we will basically start to offer that commercially real soon. So having a happy customer is a great resource and having them be able to get out and do referrals for you is very, very valuable. When you re a small company people worry about the risk of working with you, having your customers be able to come back and be a referral for you or to recommend you. It helps to essentially reduce that risk by increasing the trust and your ability to be successful. In our case going beyond that, we re starting to come out of stealth mode and put our products out there for sale and we re thinking about what it is we want to do next. So since we re in the industrial space and since we have this kind of cool product which is the six degree of freedom joystick which allows you to be able to move things in three dimensional space whether it s, you know, a tail at the end of a robot or other things. We thought well, what moves in three dimensional space that s an exciting right now and we re going to start to move in to the industrial drone space.

As we thought about how to penetrate that space, we did our research and found that the FAA has certainly been involved in being controlling the growth or controlling the rogue aspects of growth of the industrial drone space or even the private drone space and they ve put a bunch of rules in place that restrict where it is you can fly and what it is you can do and how big your drone can be and that s called section 333. So as we thought about how to penetrate the drone space and we did this research, we realize that you can apply for an exemption to the section 333 rule to be able to allow you to fly commercially and because of the FAA it is a government database which is essentially public. So we were lucky enough to go basically hack into that public database and scrape that for the names of the 6,000 companies who have applied for exemptions and then with a little bit more leg work that, you know, I dumped on an intern, we re able to build a pretty contact list and so we wanted to use these contacts and a couple of ways obviously this is a first market penetration that we want to be able to go out and sell to but also because it s a new space for us, we want to learn what problems we could solve that were universal and were something that people were willing to pay for a controller for instance and a new version of a controller to be able to have a better, you know, more precise and accurate flying and with less crashes and collisions.

So, you know, we started reaching out to this database contacts and because we don t have a product in the market yet we basically say, hey, can we pick your brain for 15 minutes? Get on a phone call and essentially learn from you what your challenges are, and that not only helps us build a better product that s going to meet the needs of the market and then essentially know what to focus on for a minimum viable product but it gives us a relationship with these folks and the right to be able to ask them when we do have a product can we come back and show it to you, which is a step towards moving them down the conversion phone.

Scott: That s pretty interesting. Walk us through how you found the database. I mean, you said you hacked into it.

I would assume that this is information that doesn t need to be stolen but did you guys have to file like a freedom information act or was this just online or how does that work?

Jim: No, it s out there. It s on the FAA website and some other folks have taken that and broken it down by a few different categories. So we re able, for instance, to search by geography. I live right in the Southwest corner of Colorado so we thought that our first outreach should be to drivable companies that we could essentially drive to in, you know, five or six hours. So from here that s a circle that includes Denver, Albuquerque, Phoenix, Salk Lake City and you know, kind of all the areas in between. The reason we want them to be drivable is, again, because we re a hardware company. We want to be able to go out there with the physical product and meet with them and essentially have a demo day at the other end. And I also think that it s easier to approach folks that are within a geographical proximity to you and say, hey, we re just up the road and we re doing this cool thing that we think might be applicable to you, you know, a problem that you might be having.

Scott: Yeah and I think, you know, overall from growth hacking I think the geographical proximity is important, right? Because as you get started, and you talked about this earlier about the risk of doing business with you. If you can see somebody and, you know, you can reach out and touch them it s a whole different relationship than if you re just talking to somebody on the phone or if you re e-mail only. It s really, really tough to build a relationship. So, you know, growth hacking by geography is probably less risky for them, a new customer.

Jim: Completely agree. And it goes through the entire life cycle of the customer, right? So if you are able to not just, you know, work with them and get them as a customer but you re able to keep them wildly happy with your product by giving them, you know, face to face customer support I think that goes a long way as well. So our plan is to grow geographically outward and to have customers that we can get to initially very quickly. Our first customer that I mentioned that we ve been working with for the last six months is in the same town as us and the ability when they call you and say, Hey, this isn t quite working like I expected,” for us to say we ll be there in 10 minutes, I think it goes a long way to keeping the customer happy.

Scott: Yeah and I think, you know, when people are marketing a new product even if it s software, hardware, you know, some type of mobile app or something that, you know, is distributed via the internet, they kind of want to boil the ocean and they think too big, right? They don t really create like this niche and really focus on that niche and I think that s the downfall of a lot of programs that I look at. It is they re just trying to do too much and they can t handle it. If you start small and just be successful you can grown from there because what you re doing is building, you know, really good customer relationships.

Jim: Yeah. And I think that, you know, the crawler to that is you want to obviously pick big problems to solve because that s your market. So figure out a way that you can solve big problems one small problem at a time and that allows you to be able to knock down little dominos along the way to solving that big problem. So you re minimum viable product for instance should solve the most burning small problems that your intended customer base have and that it also helps with your messaging, right? I think that people tend to boil the ocean with their messaging as well and say, hey, you know, I m going to try and tell you all the cool things that my product does and usually what they end up with those result is a very garbled message where people can t just pick out the essence and the nuggets or don t even take the time to try and figure out where the nuggets are within that message to say “How does this help me with my day to day problems?”

How do you contact these people? Did you call them? Did you e-mail them? Or what did the information contain? And then after that, you know, when you started contacting these folks, what did they tell you that was unexpected?

Jim: So the contact is kind of interesting and I think it s important because it kind of brings up the notion of AB testing. We started with an e-mail and we struggled for awhile to try and figure out even the subject line for the e-mail because we wanted to make sure that they actually opened the e-mail. So we tested with our first probably 20 contacts. We tested 10 different e-mail subject lines and you know, tried to refine that and then the message within the e-mail, we kept it as concise as we could, you know, started with what our intention is so they know right away that, you know, we want to reach out and have a 15-minute conversation about the challenges that they face with being service providers in the industrial drone space. We also created multiple landing pages that we refer to that have more details within there and then of course put analytics on those landing pages to figure out who opened them, how long they stayed, where they went next. There are multiple calls to action on the landing pages, etc. So you know, your classic A to B testing of both your message and your flow within that and we got so-so response to reaching out with e-mail first. Probably about 5% to 10% of people got back to us and said yes, they d be interested in talking to us but we know that a lot more actually opened up the pages and, you know, went through and looked at the data so that gave us I guess enough confidence to then follow up with the ones that didn t get back to us with a phone call and we had a lot more luck with just getting out there and dialing.

If you read Eric Reis books about, you know, developing minimum product in the Lean model, etc., I mean, the number one thing they talk about is early in the process to get out of your office. So that s why we put this initiative in place in the first place is to go and talk to these folks and I think the most effective way to answer your question is to call them up, get on the phone with them. These are fairly small companies. It doesn t take a long time to figure out how to get through the, you know, the company to the right person. Usually the person answering the phone is the one you want to talk to.

Scott: Yeah, true. And I mean I m really glad that you had more success on the phone. I m a big proponent of the phone because it s more personal and e-mail is great but the problem is that it s really easy to automate e-mail and send a lot of e-mails so everyone does it because it s easy and it s like a road in the effectiveness for everyone just because there s so much e-mail floating around out there. It s easily ignored. But a phone call, you know, it just feels better.

Jim: Yeah. Completely agree. And you ll learn a lot more because you can take the conversation in all sorts of directions that maybe you didn t even anticipate getting on the call and you know, the key is once you hang up that phone, write down everything you just heard, you know, because you want to look for commonalities. You know, in our case we re doing research as part of this as well so we re trying to look for commonalities across these conversations.

Scott: Yeah. Either write it down or there s software available where you can record calls just like I m recording this, you know, go back and listen to it because you can t take all the notes because you re trying to think of the next question to ask the person to so record it as well if you can.

Jim: And if they want you to. I think the only downside of recording is, you know, I feel like I need to tell people that they re being recorded as part of the conversation early and I think it really affects what they say and how they say it when they know they re being recorded. You don t get as much of a candid conversation.

Scott: Yeah, well true and you need to look at the different laws of the different states as well. I tend to forget that because in Texas if one person on the line knows that it s being recorded then it s legal. You don t have to notify them. They re maybe different in Colorado. All right. Well, cool. So in terms of other things that you guys are going to be doing in terms of this growth hacking nature I m assuming it s going to take awhile to get to this database. Are you looking for other tricks or you think this is good enough or you know, kind of what s the next step? And then you know, obviously if you give us the next step I m assuming that the next step is probably going to be cost you a little or nothing as well versus your time.

Jim: Yeah. So you re right. I think it s going to take awhile obviously to work our way through this thing. We want to close the loop with the information that we get from these calls and spend a couple of months working on the first version of the product so that we can send it, turn around and go back to these folks and say, hey, we ve got something ready to drive out to you and to let you fly around. So we will be kind of forging ahead with some of the other stuff that we want to do around messaging. I think that at the same time that we re going to be working on the engineering side of the product the information that we re gathering from these calls is helping us essentially market and message as well and be able to refine that. So we would be doing some more traditional stuff along the lines of, you know, identifying our key words and getting those out there so that we can get both paid a natural search working for folks that do wake up with this problem and are trying to actively go and find a solution for it. At the same time we re starting our outreach program to the actual drone manufacturers which again is a said phone calls, but we want to be crisp on the message that we deliver to these folks on the phone. And, you know, after a phone call people the model these days or the flow these days is if they ve never heard of you before the call they re going to go if they re interested they re going to go do some research on you so you want to make sure that you re online real estate is up to snuff. They may start in an unorthodox ways. They may actually for instance go look up your LinkedIn profile now that they know who you are and look at your background, so it should be clean and point them to, you know, basically from there to your landing page on LinkedIn which should drive them from the material that you got in there should drive them to want to learn more a new website.

By then, we d like to have some anecdotal information on our website as well. Some case studies and things that they can start to learn about the product without us just trying to walk them through feature functions. So it s going to start to get into more traditional marketing but I think everything that I mentioned there is still essentially free. In the end you want to get the conversions and you want to get it to the point where they re calling you as opposed to you calling them so continuing to build and iterate through that machine that drives them through the funnel to the point where they show active interest and you make a natural connection which leads to a sale. That was a pretty vague answer, Scott but, you know, the first thing that s come to mind for me are tools we d be able to measure. I think one of the most important things with growth hacking is that everything that you do should be measurable and that you re trying different experiments and AB testing along the way and seeing what works and what doesn t with everything from your messaging to calls to action to what you say about your product. So free tools, you know, Google Analytics is great. I mean, being able to go through and comb behavior on your website I think is just an invaluable tool so we get very heavily into using Google Analytics. I think that overtime we re also asking for permission obviously to be able to reach out to these people on a regular basis so using free tools such as, you know, the early versions of Mail Chimp to be able to control what goes out through mail. Working that into, you know, marketing automations down the road should be very easy when we re ready to actually pay for market and automation system.

Scott: Yeah. It s so easy to measure all these things but you know, you can t get over your head with that stuff because that stuff isn t cheap but you ll grow into it. How do people contact you? What s your favorite social channel of choice?

Jim: I m out there all over the place. I m easy to find on LinkedIn but my Twitter handle is canuckinco because I m Canadian, I live in Colorado, so it s easy to remember. So that s probably the easiest way to find me.

If you weren t doing this hardware business and you know, keeping your feet wet in a startup world, what would you do with your time?

Jim: Well, how I ended up with this company is actually through one of my hobbies which is we started a startup accelerator here in Southwest Colorado about 3-1/2 years ago called Scape and we ve had 15 companies go through it and I spent a lot of time mentoring and trying to work with those companies. It s been really fulfilling and great to, you know, foster economic development here. As far as playing around, it s summer time. I like to get out on my houseboat and go surfing behind my surf boat and ride in bikes and traveling the world.

Scott: Cool, cool. Well, thanks Jim for your time today. It s always a pleasure and good luck with Impyrium.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/growth-hacking-jim-mackay/feed/0Growth hacking is becoming a more popular term amongst modern day marketers. It is not a short cut or a way to cheat a system but it is a process of rapid experimentation across marketing channels. The goal is to identify the most effective, efficient ways to grow a business. In this episode I talk with Jim [...]NoNo26:34Scott Kinggrowth hackingHow to Become a Modern CMO - Miko Matsumurahttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-become-modern-cmo/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-become-modern-cmo/#respondThu, 01 Sep 2016 13:00:48 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2449I am pleased to welcome Miko Matsumura (@mikojava), CMO of Gradle, as my latest podcast guest. I really enjoyed talking with Miko and absorbing his energy. In this episode Miko outlines what it takes to become a modern CMO. He gives five great points on what you should do in order to grab one of these high-profile positions. Listen in and enjoy!

How to Become a Growth Oriented CMO

Find a Growth Oriented Company

Align to the Board Expectations

Build Your Engine

Make it Rain

Get to Know Your Headhunters

During the episode Miko provides great detail on how to master the five things you should accomplish to land a CMO position. First you need to find a growth oriented company. Use your network or follow series A and B round investments on Crunchbase. After landing your position, align yourself with the board of directors and measure and grow the business according to the burn rate and sales schedule. Once you have the burn and sales rate monitored, its time to enable the automation machine and build your marketing engine. After you build the engine, align with the sales organization and create a happy internal customer. Get all of this dialed in, document your success and then build relationships with headhunters looking for CMOs.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-become-modern-cmo/feed/0I am pleased to welcome Miko Matsumura (@mikojava), CMO of Gradle, as my latest podcast guest. I really enjoyed talking with Miko and absorbing his energy. In this episode Miko outlines what it takes to become a modern CMO. He gives five great points on what you should do in order to grab one of [...]NoNo33:36Scott KingHow to Build a Content Marketing Strategy – Jason Englishhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-build-a-content-marketing-strategy-jason-english/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-build-a-content-marketing-strategy-jason-english/#respondThu, 25 Aug 2016 13:00:54 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2436In this episode I talk with Jason English (@bluefug), an enterprise technology marketing consultant and writer with more than 20 years of practice and management experience, from the earliest interactive firms, to startups and large software companies. Jason and I worked together at ITKO and ran content, product, social, event marketing and business development. We were later acquired by CA Technologies in 2011.

Jason and I talk about content marketing and how implement a strategy that won’t run out of gas. We expand on how to integrate the content into other channels and how to start feedback loops to develop stakeholders and influencers. Please listen in to one of the most interesting writers and marketers you will ever hear.

Questions asked during episode

Many companies don t seem to have a content marketing strategy, they just produce material in little bursts. Where do you start?

How do you keep your content from running out of gas?

What are some useful measures of successful content?

Where do these measures break down?

We did a lot of work around thought leadership at ITKO – when is that important to establish and who should do the work?

Where does content marketing intersect with other types of marketing – events, advertising, etc.?

What would you do with your time if you had no other responsibilities?

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/how-to-build-a-content-marketing-strategy-jason-english/feed/0In this episode I talk with Jason English (@bluefug), an enterprise technology marketing consultant and writer with more than 20 years of practice and management experience, from the earliest interactive firms, to startups and large software companies. Jason and I worked together at ITKO and ran content, product, social, event marketing and business development. We [...]NoNo37:34Scott Kingcontent marketing, product marketing, strategyHow My Blog Built My Business - Scott Baradell of Idea Grovehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/scott-baradell-idea-grove/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/scott-baradell-idea-grove/#respondThu, 18 Aug 2016 13:00:53 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2385In this episode I talk with Scott Baradell (@DallasInbound). Scott and I talk about how his personal outlet built a multi-million dollar B2B marketing agency. His passion for writing began as a journalist and grew when he started blogging about his personal life, family and experiences. His blog then helped launch his public relations and technical content marketing company, Idea Grove. Idea Grove now helps clients like NEC, Amazon and CA Technologies publish thought provoking content in order to gain new customers with great content.

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/scott-baradell-idea-grove/feed/0In this episode I talk with Scott Baradell (@DallasInbound). Scott and I talk about how his personal outlet built a multi-million dollar B2B marketing agency. His passion for writing began as a journalist and grew when he started blogging about his personal life, family and experiences. His blog then helped launch his public relations and technical [...]NoNo35:55Scott KingDigital Media Headhunter - Jim Durbinhttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/digital-media-headhunter-jim-durbin/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/digital-media-headhunter-jim-durbin/#respondThu, 11 Aug 2016 13:00:45 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2380In this episode Jim and I talk about his digital media recruiting efforts and why people contact him. Jim recruits and places marketing people in all types of digital media, demand generation and event planning roles in all parts of the country. If you are looking for a position, contact Jim on your channel of choice but please don’t tell him you have an MBA.

Links Mentioned

]]>https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/digital-media-headhunter-jim-durbin/feed/0In this episode Jim and I talk about his digital media recruiting efforts and why people contact him. Jim recruits and places marketing people in all types of digital media, demand generation and event planning roles in all parts of the country. If you are looking for a position, contact Jim on your channel of choice but [...]NoNo49:19Scott KingInaugural Kick Off Episodehttps://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/inaugural-kick-episode/
https://thescottking.com/podcast/cmo/inaugural-kick-episode/#respondThu, 04 Aug 2016 19:00:20 +0000http://thescottking.com/?post_type=podcast&p=2406Thanks so much to everyone that has agreed to be a part of my project. Here goes nothin’!